Todd Rice, M.D., M.Sc.
Rice named medical director of Institutional Review Board
Todd Rice, M.D., M.Sc., assistant professor of Medicine, has been appointed medical director of Vanderbilt University's Institutional Review Board (IRB), effective July 1.
Rice will succeed Gordon Bernard, M.D., who has served as IRB medical director for nearly a decade, and who last week was appointed associate vice chancellor for Research, overseeing clinical research at Vanderbilt Medical Center.
Rice, who has chaired an IRB committee for more than three years and who currently is associate medical director, “brings a wealth of experience and training to the post,” said Bernard, the Melinda Owen Bass Professor of Medicine.
“We have one of the most respected and efficient IRB programs in the country, and I am confident Todd will do an excellent job of keeping us at the forefront of human subject protections at Vanderbilt,” he said.
“Dr. Rice is an excellent mentor, and excels at thoughtful, informed decision making,” added IRB director Denise Roe. “He is well respected among the research community as well as his IRB colleagues for his keen ability to balance human subjects protections within a complex research environment.”
A graduate of the University of Notre Dame and Indiana University School of Medicine, Rice earned a Master of Science degree in Clinical Investigation from Vanderbilt in 2005, the year he joined the Vanderbilt Division of Allergy, Pulmonary, and Critical Care Medicine.
For his part, Rice praised Bernard for “an outstanding job of improving the efficiency and consistency of the IRB … (and) developing the infrastructure that makes the IRB function smoothly.” As a result, he said, the transition to a new medical director will appear “seamless” to researchers and study personnel.
The IRB monitors 3,400 studies involving human subjects across campus. It is part of the university's Human Research Protection Program, which last year received full, three-year re-accreditation with high marks.