An IRB is an institutional review board and is also known as an ‘independent ethics committee’ (IEC), ‘ethical review board’ (ERB), or ‘research ethics board’ (REB).
It is a type of committee used in research in the United States that has been formally designated to approve, monitor, and review biomedical and behavioral research involving humans. This is a very important and essential step in publishing research. This step is meant to assure that published studies are authentic, properly conducted, and reflect the current state of research along with ensuring that participants will not be harmed or suffer distress from the study. Without this step it would be possible to print falsified results, state erroneous conclusions, use unethical methodology, or any number of other research fallacies that could mislead or pervert genuine studies.