that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently issued a final rule that requires institutional review boards (IRBs) to register through a system maintained by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)? While the FDA’s requirement may be new, Vanderbilt’s IRBs have already been registered with HHS for quite a while in accordance with our Federalwide Assurance (FWA). If your sponsor is asking you if your IRB is registered, please direct them to THIS LINK and have them search for “Vanderbilt.”