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Federal funding for basic research led to the gene-editing revolution. Don’t cut it. – Vox

Posted: April 23, 2017 at 12:22 am

Outside contributors' opinions and analysis of the most important issues in politics, science, and culture.

Labs across our country are a source of American optimism advancing knowledge, technologies, and cures. And yet, as citizens in 500 cities worldwide prepare to march this weekend in support of science, many American scientific practitioners are afraid. They worry that American science as we know it would be hobbled if President Trumps proposed 18 percent cut to the National Institutes of Health, Americas premier medical research funder, becomes reality.

We hope Congress will hear historys call and re-assert American leadership in advancing humanitys scientific knowledge.

Call us nave, but we believe as an immunologist and biochemist attempting to perfect and deploy gene-editing advances to cure disease that Democrats and Republicans alike can be united by a shared drive for scientific exploration and life-saving discoveries.

Science is not the property of any political party or region of the country. In red states and blues states, daughters and sons ask their first scientific questions when they come to us and wonder how the human body grows, how genes are inherited, and how a medicine works. Over the past century, American political leaders have encouraged young people to ask these fundamental questions, invested in their training to become scientists, and given them tools to translate questions into innovation.

The rewards of breakthroughs are felt most acutely when our families experience illness. Many of us know the pain of a loved one discovering a lump that turns out to be cancer or showing signs of neurological decline. In these moments, whatever our politics, we all hope to reach for the most powerful medicines, which continue to result from the relentless pursuit of scientific knowledge.

As we write, biomedical progress is accelerating, changing how we understand and fight disease. One example is CRISPR, a tool that can edit specific sequences in human DNA, which one of us helped invent and the other uses in research to understand and control the human immune system. Targeted at the building blocks of life, CRISPR could induce immune cells to fight disease or neutralize predisposition to one.

The combination of CRISPR and new therapies has raised hopes for a new generation of powerful cancer treatments. Across the US, our colleagues are teaming up and racing to apply similar approaches to dementia, heart disease, and countless other conditions.

A growing number of Americans have heard of CRISPR and its medical potential. Far fewer realize that the transformative applications of CRISPR genome editing would never have occurred without robust funding for basic scientific research. Inquiry into unusual genes in unglamorous bacteria before we even knew the gene-altering power they contained, laid the foundation for CRISPR technology. Now that same technology is driving a revolution in biomedicine and rapidly advancing towards clinical trials.

We certainly have not charted the breadth of microorganisms that will inspire the invention of future drugs, nor fathomed the full complexity of the inner workings of human cells. Thats the work of basic scientific research. The next revolution in biology is currently an idea in a scientists head, or being hashed out in a late night lab conversation among graduate students, or sitting in a grant application to the NIH asking for a chance.

Our research represents just a sliver of the vital projects that more than 300,000 researchers are undertaking in 50 states with NIH support. Unfortunately, the presidents proposed budget threatens that research. Among the deep cuts to science support he seeks is a nearly $6 billion reduction for NIH, representing nearly a fifth of the agencys funding. (For context, thats more than its entire current cancer budget.) The proposal has prompted justifiable concern among scientists and patient advocates. Funding cuts would deter tomorrows scientists from the field, or at least from pursuing careers in the US.

Curtailing the NIH budget, a significant chunk of Americas biomedical research funding, would cripple our capacity to lead on pressing health challenges. The vast majority of NIH funds go to funding scientific research and training, both within the agency and externally. For decades, America has been at the forefront of scientific innovation. Slashing funding would destroy long-term projects and threaten American primacy in medical research. More importantly, underfunding NIH will hamstring efforts to fight disease.

Some might argue that private industry will fill the void, given the economic benefits of scientific breakthroughs,. But the truth, surprising to many, is that while private investment can indeed lead to the discovery of profitable new drugs and therapies, its focus on the bottom line tends to short-change basic as opposed to applied research. In weighing a projects anticipated earnings and costs, businesses seek a probable path to profit.

Transformative science requires a different mold than the one found in industry. CRISPR grew not out of a race to develop disease treatments, but out of basic scientific research into bacteria. The boldest innovations stem from unlikely collaborations or quixotic investigations in other words, exploration driven by discovery rather than profit. Occasionally, these projects do become profitable, but only through a scientists persistent drive to show that an idea, a hope, a hunch, is not so crazy after all. While stockholders may not want a corporation to make bets that are unlikely to have an immediate payoff, as citizens we must demand our government does so.

And thats precisely why the National Institutes of Health exists: It ensures that, though we may not know what the next CRISPR will be, there are bright and dedicated American scientists pursuing many roads of inquiry, even if the path to profit isnt immediately clear.

As Congress considers the presidents budget, we have a simple request: Please give Americas scientists the tools we need to succeed.

Supporting NIH will position American scientists to continue the open-ended explorations at which they excel. Government funding is critical to encourage our scientists to pursue not just the challenges that are relatively easy, or obviously profitable, but the ones that are fiendishly hard yet crucial.

NIH funding is a down payment on discovery, the seed money to fund a critical step toward ending Alzheimers or curing cancer. What could be a bigger win for America than that?

Jennifer Doudna is a professor of chemistry, and molecular and cell biology, at the University of California, Berkeley. Alex Marson is an assistant professor of microbiology, immunology, and medicine at UC San Francisco.

The Big Idea is Voxs home for smart discussion of the most important issues and ideas in politics, science, and culture typically by outside contributors. If you have an idea for a piece, pitch us at thebigidea@vox.com

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Scientists discover gene that blocks spread of colon cancer – Medical Xpress

Posted: at 12:22 am

April 21, 2017 by Jane Butler Cancer Histopathologic image of colonic carcinoid. Credit: Wikipedia/CC BY-SA 3.0

Researchers from RCSI (Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland) and the University of Nice, France, have discovered the function of a gene called KCNQ1 that is directly related to the survival of colon cancer patients. The gene produces pore-forming proteins in cell membranes, known as ion channels. The finding is an important breakthrough towards the development of more effective therapies for colon cancer and new diagnostics that will provide a more accurate prognosis for colon cancer patients. The research is published this week in the prestigious journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

This is the first study of its kind to work out the molecular mechanisms of how the KCNQ1 ion channel gene suppresses the growth and spread of colon cancer tumours.

Worldwide, there are 774,000 deaths from colorectal cancer each year and it is the third leading cause of death from cancer globally. In Ireland, almost 2,500 Irish people are diagnosed with bowel cancer annually and it is the second most common cause of cancer death.

The research team, led by Professor Brian Harvey, Department of Molecular Medicine, RCSI, have identified the molecular mechanisms by which the KCNQ1 gene suppresses the growth and spread of colon cancer cells. The KCNQ1 gene works by producing an ion channel protein which traps a tumour promoting protein called beta-catenin in the cell membranes before it can enter the nucleus of the cell causing more cancer cells to grow.

The study looked at the relationship between the expression of the KCNQ1 gene and patient survival from more than 300 colon cancer patients. Patients who had high expression of the KCNQ1 gene were found to have a longer survival and less chance of relapse.

Commenting on the significance of the discovery Professor Harvey said: "This study has demonstrated the ability of an ion channel gene to block the growth of colon cancer cells. This is an exciting discovery as it opens up the possibility of a new kind of therapy that will target the KCNQ1 gene with drugs and also as a biomarker to improve diagnostics of colon cancer onset and development in patients. This information will help clinicians to identify the most effective treatment for the individual patient."

"In the future, when we understand more about the KCNQ1 gene through further research, it will open up the possibility of developing new drug treatments that will be able harness the suppressive properties of the gene to target the colon specifically, without exposing other tissues in the body to unnecessary chemotherapy. The development of more targeted treatments for colon cancer is vital to improve the prognosis and quality of life for colon cancer patients."

Explore further: Among colon cancer patients, smokers have worse outcomes than non-smokers

More information: Raphael Rapetti-Mauss et al. Bidirectional KCNQ1:-catenin interaction drives colorectal cancer cell differentiation, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2017). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1702913114

In an analysis of more than 18,000 patients treated for colon cancer, current smokers were 14 percent more likely to die from their colon cancer within five years than patients who had never smoked.

Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have discovered a possible strategy to treat colon cancers that are caused by the mutant KRAS gene, which is responsible for approximately half of all colon cancer ...

A small molecule called TASIN-1 can selectively kill cells with a mutation that is considered to be a precursor to colon cancer, while sparing related normal cells, UT Southwestern Medical Center cancer biologists have demonstrated. ...

Many types of cancer are caused by gene mutations in the signalling pathways that control cell growth, such as the hedgehog signalling pathway. A new study from the Karolinska Institutet, published in the journal Nature Communications, ...

Researchers from Oregon Health and Science University and Oregon State University have found that aspirin may slow the spread of some types of colon and pancreatic cancer cells. The paper is published in the American Journal ...

Researchers and physicians have grappled with the role of "adjuvant," or post-surgery, chemotherapy for patients with early-stage colon cancer, even for cancers considered high risk. Now researchers from the University of ...

Researchers from RCSI (Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland) and the University of Nice, France, have discovered the function of a gene called KCNQ1 that is directly related to the survival of colon cancer patients. The ...

A new laboratory technique developed by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and other institutions can rapidly test the effectiveness of treatments for life-threatening breast cancer metastases in bone. The study appears ...

A drug created from a malaria protein stopped tumour growth of chemotherapy-resistant bladder cancer, offering hope for cancer patients not responding to standard treatments.

Cutting out certain amino acidsthe building blocks of proteinsfrom the diet of mice slows tumour growth and prolongs survival, according to new research published in Nature.

"Inhale deeply ... and exhale." This is what a test for lung cancer could be like in future. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research in Bad Nauheim have developed a method that can detect the disease ...

Identification of a specific genetic mutation in patients with non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) helps clinicians select the best treatment option. Potential NSCLC patients usually undergo invasive tissue biopsy, which may ...

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Game reviews: Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition – Irish Independent

Posted: at 12:22 am

Which is precisely why Bulletstorm in this remastered version again proves so entertaining, an unending gory stream of kills performed in as inventive a fashion as possible. Never mind the plot, nor the sweary (and frankly wearing) script, this is a shooter as competitive sport, urging you to employ imaginative and eye-wateringly gruesome executions instead of just, y'know, killing enemies.

The sci-fi settings may be familiar (yet beautifully remastered) but it's the riotous score system that sets Bulletstorm on fire - why waste a bullet on an enemy when you can yank him from behind cover with a whip, then impale his body on to a spiky cactus? Or slide-tackle a guy and shove him into a lethal electric fence?

Yes, it's juvenile. No, graphics aside, it hasn't changed an iota from the 2011 original. But this overlooked gem deserves a new audience. Just not for anyone under the age of 18.

They don't make 'em like this any more. That's exactly why a group of ex-Rare alumni made this retro platformer with help from Kickstarter. It fills a gap in the market for colourful collect-'em-ups just like Rare used to excel at in the N64 days - see Banjo-Kazooie et al.

Inside the world of Yooka-Laylee - populated by wacky characters (one is called, ahem, Trowzer Snake) spouting wisecracks and built from familiar 3D platforming blueprints - it's as if the last 20 years in gaming never happened. Nostalgic fans will lap it up, though, entranced by its winning mix of cute animation, gentle (and fiendish) platforming and genre tropes. Newcomers may feel justifiably irked by its slightly loose controls, wonky camera and the lack of clear direction.

Developers are still figuring out what works best in virtual reality and Fated attempts a movie-length storyline, earthed in Norse mythology, accompanied by some light interaction.

It works, to a point, thanks to a cartoonish World of Warcraft-aesthetic and some engaging character designs as you try to save your wife and daughter from vengeful giants. But the lack of meaningful gameplay undermines Fated's attractive 10 price point.

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Bill To Protect Arizona Student Journalists From Censorship Hits A … – KJZZ

Posted: at 12:21 am


KJZZ
Bill To Protect Arizona Student Journalists From Censorship Hits A ...
KJZZ
A measure that would protect student journalists from censorship hit a roadblock in the state legislature. House Majority Leader John Allen pulled the bill from ...
Student journalism from censorship legislation hits a roadblock ...Sierra Vista Herald

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Murder on Facebook raises big censorship questions: What should social-media companies do about violent content? – Salon

Posted: at 12:21 am

On Easter Sunday horrific footage of a 74-year-old man being gunned down on a Cleveland sidewalk was posted on Facebook by his killer, reigniting an ongoing debate over how social-media content should be policed.

But effective strategies forblocking every piece of offensive and illegal content have been elusive and may never be 100 percent effective, according to some experts. Others including Facebook itself say more can and should be done to root out offensive content, including hate speech, horrific and illegal snuff videos and fake news items that mold the opinions of gullible users.

Facebook says it receives millions of complaints objecting tocontent everyweek from its nearly 2 billion active users. When the company receives a complaint, an algorithm automatically flags the content, which is then reviewed by moderators to quickly determine if itviolates the law or the companys terms and conditions.

Footage of the murder of Robert Godwin Sr. by deranged killer Steve Stephens, 37, who committed suicide on Tuesday following a police chase in Pennsylvania, was publicly viewable on Stephens Facebook profile for about two hours on Sunday. Facebook said it disabled Stephens account 23 minutes after it received reports of the murder video, but it was publicly viewable long enough for users to capture the footage, prompting a pleaon Twitter from one of Godwins grandchildren for people tostop sharing the video.

Desmond Patton,an assistant professor of social work at Columbia University, said that while the Godwin murder video should clearly have been taken down, it one extreme example of a larger issue. Companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google (which owns YouTube), he said, need to recruit specialists and elicit feedback from community leaders to improve how content is moderated, including material that might not seem offensive to every user.

I study violence on social media and all of the [problematic] content that I see almost never gets taken down, Patton told Salon. If youre just using tech people from Silicon Valley [as content monitors,] youre going to miss a lot of things. You need to diversify who makes these decisions.

Facebook declined to comment to Salon about thestrategies its considering to fortify its efforts to block objectionable and illegal content uploaded by its users, but having a more aggressive content filtering system could have unintended consequences. For example, would a stricterpolicy lead to the censorship of footage like the July 2016 shooting of Philando Castile by a Minnesota police officer? It could be argued that this video servesthe publics interest because it viscerally highlights the ongoing problem of excessive force inflicted on African-Americans by members of law enforcement.

Sarah Esther Lageson, a sociologist at Rutgers Universitys School of Criminal Justice, saidthat Facebook is under intense pressure to take a stance and define its position on monitoring user-uploaded content, which couldleadto more surveillance something that not all Facebook users will welcome. But she said the benefits of having an open and easy way to produce and share online videos, which can highlight injustices and expose crimes, outweigh the negative effects of giving people so much freedom.

Facebook will likely provide an array of creative solutions and will likely do their best to streamline oversight of user-uploaded content using [artificial intelligence] or machine learning, but I wont make an argument that those efforts would catch every instance of an extremely rare event like this, Lageson told Salon in an email.

Besides, she said in a follow-up phone conversation, horrific crimes take place in public no matter what we do to prevent them; its the new medium by which criminals can advertise their crimes that concerns people.

This is clearly an innovative way of doing something that has always been done: People have always killed people in public, mass shootings happen, she said. That being said the internet is a way to get into peoples homes, which I think is what scares people, that you cant even feel protected from witnessing a crime on your cell phone or your laptop. Its one thing to see a crime happen on the street and another thing to see it when youre on your couch.

As Facebook and other social-networking service providers struggle to moderate the immense content stream coming at them from their users, the solution to the many problems that can arise is complicated. It requires, as Patton suggested, more feedback from experts and community members abouthow to establish policies for all types of harmful, violent and offensive content. And as Lageson pointed out, the fact that people can produce and share content so easily has helped fight crime and injustice.

The solution to the problem of preventing offensive, hateful, violent and murderous content from being distributed onsocial networks is as complicated as people are themselves, and there may never be a solution that satisfies everyones concerns.

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NOTHSTINE: On the expanding campus censorship crisis – North State Journal (subscription)

Posted: at 12:21 am

Demonstrators walk in a cloud of smoke after a brawl broke out during a Patriots Day Free Speech rally in Berkeley, California, U.S., April 15, 2017. REUTERS/Stephen Lam

Out of all the current cultural and social absurdity in America, censorship of speech on college campuses ranks near the top. When speakers need police escort on and off college campuses, an alarm bell should be going off that something has gone seriously awry, wrote Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute last week.

In what is sadly becoming more of the norm, the mere presence of Mac Donald, whose topic Blue Lives Matter (as in police officers), was just too much for many students at Claremont McKenna College in California.

Mac Donald was able to deliver an address on campus via telecast in early April, but only answered a few questions before being ushered off the premises because of safety concerns. (Her essay of the entire affair, published online at City Journal, is worth reading). The day before, she says, event organizers told her they were considering changing the venue to a building with fewer glass windows to break, wrote Bill McGurn in the Wall Street Journal. Such are the considerations these days on the modern American campus.

A university once championed for its commitment to free expression in the 1960s now seems destined to babysit the next generation of proto-fascists.

On top of that, UC Berkley just announced the cancellation of a scheduled talk by commentator Ann Coulter. This in the wake of violent riots that resulted in the cancellation of Milo Yiannopouloss address at the same school in February. A university once championed for its commitment to free expression in the 1960s now seems destined to babysit the next generation of proto-fascists.

While Im not a fan of some of Coulters blathering, she deserves credit for ignoring Berkleys edict and has vowed to speak anyway. Berkley, like many schools, cites inability to guarantee the safety of speakers who dissent from campus group-think as the reason for cancellation. This is known as the the hecklers veto, as the campus censorship mob mobilizes rapidly to squelch what it deems offensive. The mobs are sometimes further encouraged by campus overseers and academics who churn out their own diatribes on victimhood.

Some administrators threaten discipline. But ironically, because of a need to appease perceived grievance groups, speech disruptors and rioters are often treated less like criminals than those who dare to engage in what the rioters consider thought crimes.

One wonders if a country that once had to send in the National Guard and even the 101st Airborne to integrate schools in the American South will one day be compelled to send in troops to enforce the First Amendment at public colleges and universities.

At a deeper level, as Mac Donald pointed out so well, the more serious concern is the rising number of students who lack all understanding of the principles of the American Founding. As James Madison noted, free speech is the only effectual guardian of every other right. And even more disturbing is not just the lack of understanding, but the outright rejection of an inherent right. For the mob, the American Framers are merely racist uniformed relics from the past.

As news clips can testify, even conservatives elected to Congress are shouted down on some campuses. Amazingly, these same lawmakers seem to have no problems when addressing supposedly less intellectually advanced high schoolers.

Americans and students not yet brainwashed by campus mobs and their enablers must push back and stand up for their rights. Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has a long track record of successfully defending citizens against free speech violators. Unless the campus zest for censorship is combatted now, the country could look quite different in a few years, wrote Mac Donald.

FIRE reports that campuses across America have over 230 bias response teams to compel cultural group-think. The full-frontal assault on speech on campuses shouldnt be taken lightly. As some students and leftist mobs spiral further and further towards anarchy and violence, its not only dumbing down generations of students, but ushering in tyranny. Colleges and universities would be wise to reexamine who they enroll in their schools, and then recheck the principles and ideals they teach.

Ray Nothstine is a member of the North State Journals editorial board, separate from the news staff. Unlike other newspapers, the North State Journal does not publish unsigned editorials; the author or authors of every editorial, letter, op-ed, and column is prominently displayed. To submit a letter or op-ed, see our submission guidelines.

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Doctor Who-inspired proxy transmogrifies politically sensitive web to … – The Register

Posted: at 12:21 am

Computer boffins in Canada are working on anti-censorship software called Slitheen that disguises disallowed web content as government-sanctioned pablum. They intend for it to be used in countries where network connections get scrutinized for forbidden thought.

Slitheen named after Doctor Who aliens capable of mimicking humans to avoid detection could thus make reading the Universal Declaration of Human Rights look like a lengthy refresher course in North Korean juche ideology or a politically acceptable celebration of cats.

In a presentation last October, Cecylia Bocovich, a University of Waterloo PhD student developing the technology in conjunction with computer science professor Ian Goldberg, said that governments in countries such as China, Iran, and Pakistan have used a variety of techniques to censor internet access, including filtering by IP address, filtering by hostname, protocol-specific throttling, URL keyword filtering, active probing, and application layer deep packet inspection.

In an email to The Register, Goldberg said the software is based on the concept of decoy routing.

"The basic idea behind decoy routing is that the (censored) user's computer makes an Internet connection to some non-censored ('overt') site, such as a site with cute cat videos," said Goldberg. "However, it embeds a hidden cryptographic tag in its connection, which only a particular Internet router somewhere on the path between the user and the cute cat site can see. That router, seeing the tag, then redirects the traffic to a censored ('covert') site, say Wikipedia."

As Bocovich and Goldberg explain in a paper they co-authored, these tags make the web session's master TLS secret available to a cooperating ISP. This allows the ISP to conduct what amounts to a friendly man-in-the-middle attack by having a network relay it controls open a proxy connection to the censored website.

Slitheen, he said, improves on prior decoy routing schemes by eliminating network packet inconsistencies that signal the use of anti-censorship tools. Such discrepancies, he said, can put those seeking to avoid censorship at risk.

"The advance of Slitheen over previous decoy routing proposals is that previous systems cut the connection to the cute cats site completely to perform the redirection, so to the censor observing the user's internet connection, the packets say, 'I am going to the cute cats site,' but the amount of traffic, and timings and sizes of the component packets, will be characteristic of Wikipedia, not cute cats."

Slitheen maintains the connection to the acceptable website, thereby making it resistant to TCP replay attacks, and even downloads pages from it, though the end user only sees desired content, not decoy content.

"The technical advance of Slitheen is that the internet router that spotted the tag then looks for 'leaf resources': web content, such as images or videos, that cannot themselves cause the browser to load other content," Goldberg explained. "The router then replaces those cute cat videos with the desired content from Wikipedia, on a packet-by-packet basis, so that the packet sizes and timings are unchanged from the actual internet traffic the censor would expect to see from someone actually visiting the cute cats site."

The key insight behind Slitheen is that it provides what amounts to a traffic checksum that satisfies diagnostic techniques seeking to detect censorship avoidance.

"Since our replacements match the sizes of requests and responses exactly, the TCP state between the client and the overt site as seen by the censor is the true TCP state," the paper explains. "Furthermore, Slitheen eliminates the ability of the censor to identify its use through TCP/IP protocol fingerprinting."

Goldberg anticipates that Slitheen will be available as open source within a year.

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Eagle Bancorp’s (EGBN) CEO Ron Paul on Q1 2017 Results – Earnings Call Transcript – Seeking Alpha

Posted: at 12:21 am

Eagle Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:EGBN)

Q1 2017 Results Earnings Conference Call

April 19, 2017, 10:00 AM ET

Executives

Charles Livingston - CFO

Ron Paul - Chairman & CEO

Janice Williams - EVP & CCO

Analysts

Andrew Taylor - KBW

Casey Whitman - Sandler ONeill

David Bishop - FIG Partners

Austin Nicholas - Stephens

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Eagle Bancorp First Quarter 2017 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.

I would like to introduce your host for today's conference Charles Livingston, Chief Financial Officer. Sir, you may begin.

Charles Livingston

Thank you, Terrance. Good morning. This is Charles Livingston, Chief Financial Officer of Eagle Bancorp. Before we begin the presentation, I would like to remind everyone that some of the comments made during this call maybe considered forward-looking statements. Our Form 10-K for the 2016 fiscal year, our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and current reports on Form 8-K identify certain factors that could cause the Company's actual results to differ materially from those projected in any forward-looking statements made this morning. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements as a result of new information or future events or developments. Our periodic reports are available from the Company or online on the Companys website or the SEC website. I would like to remind you that while we think that our prospects for continued growth and performance are good, it is our policy not to establish with the markets any earnings, margin or balance sheet guidance.

Now, I would like to introduce Ron Paul, the Chairman and CEO of Eagle Bancorp.

Ron Paul

Thank you, Charles, and thanks for your first kick-off of our earnings call and your new role as CFO. Welcome to all of you on the line for the discussion of our results in the first quarter of 2017. We appreciate you joining us this morning and your continued interest. Our Chief Credit Officer, Jan Williams is also on the line with us and she, Charles and I will be glad to answer any questions later in the call.

We are very pleased to announce that earnings for the first quarter were $27 million, a 16% increase from the $23.2 million for the third quarter - for the three quarters ending March 31, 2016 and a 5% increase over the net earnings in the fourth quarter of 2016 of $25.7 million. These earnings included a $589,000 benefit or $0.02 per share for the accounting change related to the share based compensation transactions mentioned in last night's press release.

Excluding this benefit, from the new accounting guidance net income was $26.5 million and earnings per diluted share was $0.77 for the first quarter of 2017 increased from $0.68 a year ago and $0.75 for the first quarter of 2016. We are very proud to continue our record of consistent growth and earnings with this being our 33rd consecutive quarter of record net income.

We are pleased not only by the growth in net income but with the quality of our earnings and a high level of profitability which is reflected in a return on average assets of 1.62% during the first quarter which is an increase from 1.54% in the first quarter of 2016. This is the highest ROAA we have ever achieved. The return on average common equity was 12.74% for the first quarter improve from 12.39% a year ago.

The highlights of our performance in the first quarter and the key drivers of the increased profitability were very favorable net interest margin, excellent credit quality with low levels of charge-offs and a continued focus on maintaining operating leverage resulting in a favorable efficiency ratio.

Loan and deposit growth which generally a seasonally lower in the first quarter exhibited respectable increases for the period and I'm pleased to report that as of March 31, total assets exceeded $7 billion. Revenue for the first quarter was driven by growth in net interest income which represented a 7% increase over the first quarter of 2016 and was consistent with the fourth quarter of 2016.

The higher net interest income was derived from the growth in the loan portfolio, higher average loan yields, and balance sheet management in accordance with our disciplined ALCO process. Total revenue increased 6% over the same quarter of 2016.

We achieved the strong net interest margin of 4.14% for the first quarter of 2017. As was anticipated due to continuing low interest rates, the margin was lower than the 4.31% reported in the first quarter a year ago. However we are pleased that the margin was improved from 3.96% in the fourth quarter of last year. The improvement in the margin as compared to the fourth quarter of 2016 was due to two factors.

First, we have higher low level in our mix of earned assets as we manage down the high levels of liquidity that we had carried in the third and fourth quarters of last year. More importantly, we continue to see a trend of improving loan yields. We still feel that we have better pricing power for medium and larger-sized loans than we did at this time last year, while we are maintaining our credit discipline.

The average yield on loan portfolio was 5.13% for the first quarter of 2017. While this yield is the same as the first quarter of 2016, it is up from 5.08% and 5.11% respectively in the third and fourth quarters of 2016.

Our earnings for the first quarter also benefited from our focus on maintaining strong operating leverage. Total revenue for the first quarter of 2017 increased 6% over the same period in 2016. Non-interest expense for the quarter was $29.2 million which was up only 4% as compared to the first quarter of 2016 and down from 2% from the fourth quarter of 2016.

In total, non-interest income was down 3% in the first quarter of 2017 as compared to the first quarter of 2016. However, this decline was primarily due to a non-recurring gain on OREO which we reported in the first quarter of 2016.

On a recurring basis, non-interest income was up 10% in the first quarter 2017 over 2016 due primarily to increased gain on the sale of residential mortgages which were $2 million for the first quarter of 2017 up from $1.2 million one year ago. Our FHA Group is continuing to work through the approval process with Ginnie Mae and we are still expecting significant fee income from this business line later in 2017.

The efficiency ratio improved to 40.06 for the first quarter as compared to 40.80 a year ago, and 40.22 in the fourth quarter of 2016. At 29.2 million, non-interest expenses for the first quarter of 2017 were down 2% from the level of fourth quarter of 2016.

During the first quarter of 2017 versus 2016 we benefited from our continued focus on expense management and its impact on operating leverage. We are seeing the benefit of the relocations within our branching system completed last year. Our average deposits per branch are now up 257 million as compared to the average for the Washington Metropolitan area of 112 million.

At the same time, we are prudently adding staff in our lending units and the heart of the house operations and systems departments. So, while we continue to maintain the sound infrastructure needed to ensure quality of operations, meet all compliance requirements, and provide superior customer service, we also consistently realize the opportunities for improving operating leverage and feel we can maintain the efficiency ratio in the range achieved over the last several quarters.

At March 31, 2017 the loan portfolio had increased 13% over the balance at March 31, 2016. We achieved net loan growth during the first quarter of 2017 of $147 million or about 2.6% despite approximately $125 million of payoffs in the last week of December and first week in January and the fundings of new loans late in the first quarter.

Our loan pipeline continues a very good level and we continue to see loan demand throughout the Washington Metropolitan region. The positive balances at March 31, 2017 had grown $600 million or 12% since March 31, 2016.

For the first quarter deposits increased $73 million or 1.3% over December 31, 2016 as we reduced an excess liquidity position. Our average overnight liquidity was up $275 million in the first quarter of 2017 as compared to $602 million in the fourth quarter of 2016. The change in the asset liability mix contributed the improved net interest margin during the first quarter. At March 31, 2017 core deposits which excludes CDs were 86% of total deposits and DDA deposits was still 32% of total deposits which is consistent with our business model and long-term strategy.

We continue to strengthen and grow our core customer relationships to cross-sell of additional deposit products, treasury management and other related services. Continuing the favorable mix of non-interest-bearing deposits as we have grown has been a key component of our strong NIM.

We continue our disciplined approach to pricing of both loans and deposits. We remain committed to maintaining a strong NIM and see no value in growing the balance sheet just for the sake of growth. Our primary focus will always be on growth in EPS.

We have limited interest rate risk in a rising rate environment due to our relatively neutral position for asset and liability sensitivity. We maintain a short duration of loans, investments and deposits. The repricing duration of the loan portfolio is only 22 months and the investment portfolio 40 months. Variable and adjustable rate loans comprise 67% of the portfolio.

We are ready pierced the floor rates of about 42% of the loans with floors and should burn through another 18% of the loans with floors with the next 25 basis point increase in rates should that day come. We continue to see an active economy and strong loan demand in the Washington Metropolitan area. The region has reduced growth of 56,000 net new jobs in the last year and most are in the higher income white-collar sectors.

The most significant job growth over the last year has been in business services, healthcare and education. We continue to monitor the potential impact of activities of administration what is important to note that the federal government spending makes up 30% of our $491 billion regional economy. That level is expected to continue to decrease on a relative basis due primarily to growth in the private sector, not cutbacks at the federal level.

While there is healthy loan demand, the market is very competitive and we still continue our careful underwriting of loans by industry, location and project type. We still see the possibility for oversupply of certain product types in certain sub markets. The demand for residential space is still strong in multiple markets in Washington DC proper.

The key to our success over the years is our knowledge of the individual sub markets throughout the Washington Metropolitan area. Another absolute highlight for the first quarter of 2017 was our credit quality and favorable charge-off experience. Net charge-offs annualized were mere four basis points of average loans for the quarter as compared to nine basis points of average loans for the first quarter of 2016.

At four basis points, the level of charge-offs were among the best levels the bank has ever achieved and were below on our annual average of nine basis points for 2016 and industry and peer group averages. At March 31, NPAs as a percentage of total assets were also at a low level of 22 basis points as compared to 42 basis points a year ago and 30 basis points at December 31, 2016.

Non-performing loans as a percentage of total loans were 25 basis points as compared to 43 basis points at March 31, 2015 and 31 basis points at March 31, 2015. The absolute level of NPAs was reduced by $4.9 million in the first quarter of 2017 to $15.7 million. We continue to adhere to our conservative policy as to when to place a loan on non-performing status.

The allowance for loan losses was 1.03% at the end of the quarter. Our credit quality remains solid as we continue to reduce the levels of charge-offs and classified loans while increasing the size of the portfolio through new loan growth. Consistent application of our reserve methodology, reduced charge-off, low levels of classified loans, and low growth results in a modestly lower allowance for the total loans.

We continue to add the allowance at a rate far in excess of charge-offs. At March 31, 2017, the coverage ratio was 417% of non-performing loans as compared to 249% at March 31, 2016 and 330% at December 31, 2016. At these levels we believe the bank is adequately reserved.

On another positive note, I'd also like to mention that due to favorable adjustments in the apportionment of revenue at the state level, we saw a reduction in the effective tax rate by approximately 1% during the first quarter of 2017. This reduction is not related to the new accounting rule on share-based transactions but rather the changing mix of our revenue between Marilyn, District of Columbia, and Virginia which has a lower tax rate.

Due to our high levels of profitability and continued additions to retained earnings quarter-after-quarter, we sustain our strong capital ratios. During the first quarter of 2017, we again accreted capital at a higher percentage rate in the growth of the balance sheet thus improving our capital ratios. At March 31, 2017 the total risk-based capital ratio was 14.97%, increased from 14.89% at December 31, 2016 and 12.87% at March 31, 2016.

The tangible common equity ratio improved from 10.86% a year ago to 10.97% at March 31, 2017, and as compared to 10.84% at December 31, 2016. The Tier 1 leverage ratio which seems to be getting more and more attention from the regulatory agencies also improved from 11.01% at March 31, 2016 and 10.72% at December 31, 2016 to 11.51% at March 31, 2017.

We are very excited about the opportunities we see for the balance of 2017 as we strive to solidify our position as a leading community bank headquartered in Washington Metropolitan area. We're focusing on increasing our visibility in the area and our understanding of the local business community.

In that regard, I would like to acknowledge two recent additions to the Board of Eagle Bank. Both Lynn Hackney and Leslie Ludwig have tremendous experience and a wealth of knowledge in the Washington Metropolitan area. We're thrilled that they have chosen to join the Eagle Bank team.

We appreciate the support our shareholders and those of you who are on the call. We thank you all for your interest in Eagle Bank. I'd like to remind you that our Annual Shareholders meeting will be held at 10:00 AM on May 18, at Bethesda, Marriott Hotel. We hope to see many of you at the meeting.

That concludes my formal remarks and we'll be pleased to take any questions at this time.

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from Andrew Taylor from KBW. Your line is open.

Andrew Taylor

Good morning, everyone. So, first question just on the margin, obviously deploying the excess liquidity to help drive some of the expansion and offset the higher deposit cost. And as we move forward into this year, just directionally do you think we could see some pressure to the margin, do you think you have left the lever of excess liquidity or do you think that the better loan pricing that you're getting will be enough to offset the higher funding costs?

Ron Paul

Its a great question Drew, and it's the balance that we keep playing with is that obviously we are balancing our liquidity position, we want to stay about that 100% loan to deposit ratio. Liability costs clearly are going up but offset by that and I can't say it's going to be dollar to dollar but offset by that we certainly see the pricing power that were having on the loan side.

As we always talk about, we never know who in the market all of a sudden is going to wake up one day and decide to boost liabilities, but right now we feel pretty comfortable on a stable - fairly stable liquidity pricing model and our ongoing ability of seeing the pricing.

Obviously a lot of our loan pricing yields that we've been able to get over the past six months were just starting to begin to see that in the funding side both on the construction lending side and on the loans and process that we have in underwriting.

Andrew Taylor

Okay, great. That's helpful. Maybe switching to over the fee income. Obviously, you mentioned FHA business and you also articulated a target of drawing fees to around 10% of operating revenues over the course of the year. Clearly the FHS business is the leather for you and I don't know - you touched on prepared remarks, any additional color on where you guys are in the approval process. Also maybe just talking about production volumes currently and how quickly that will be added over time?

Ron Paul

We have a great pipeline in the FHA side. The team is working diligently on the approvals, on the Ginnie Mae side. We seem to have gone through and completed all of the process and procedures that they have asked us for. So it's really in their hands right now and I dont want to say any day because I said that before but we certainly believe that it is imminent. We haven't gotten any kick back from them, answered all their questions, they've come in and done this scrubbing and it's just a matter now of time.

Fortunately we do have a buildup of the pipeline and the ability of closing this FHA deals once we get the Ginnie approval.

Andrew Taylor

Okay. Thats helpful. Ill hop out. Thanks guys.

Ron Paul

To the other thing Ill just answer on that is that obviously from a funding perspective youll have loans that will come off the books on the loan side once we funded into the Ginnie side. So there is a balance between those as well.

Andrew Taylor

Got it. Great, thanks guys. Good quarter.

Operator

And our next question comes from Casey Whitman from Sandler ONeill. Your line is open.

Casey Whitman

Good morning. Just one follow-on for the fee income question. Wondering how is the pipeline for SBA lending, whats your outlook for that group this year?

Ron Paul

We had a fairly weak first quarter on SBA but the pipeline is still there. Unfortunately SBA is just such a choppy product and therefore you're always vulnerable to the premiums versus here with SBA but we - we feel pretty good on what we have especially on the construction side of SBA product. Casey again the same comment, when that 10%, 11% on average on the non-interest income.

Casey Whitman

Okay. Got it. And then just some question on the tax rate. Can you walk us through just how youre thinking about it, how occurring is the tax changes, is it something thats going to be predominately happen in the first quarter of every year because that's one I guess equity [comes decisions paid] [ph] out or do you think look at this over tax rate throughout this year?

Charles Levingston

I think that's right Casey. We are not issuing options as a practice much anymore, just a restricted stock awards and those are issued typically in the first quarter on a best-in [ph] scheduled and the angle of best-in schedule where youll see annually that difference between the book value and the fair market value booked as a tax expense and therefore taking as a deduction on those taxes. So yes, I think thats right, its likely youll see that as a first quarter event.

Casey Whitman

Okay. So all is equal just with the state of apportionment taxes you alluded to earlier if you were running at - call it 38.5 tax rate prior to this quarter for the next three quarters you will be running closer to 37.5, call it?

Charles Levingston

I would say those effective tax rate can move a little - I think that impacted portion is an ongoing benefit to us. Between this 37.5, 38.5 range is likely where youll see that tax rate going forward all-times equal.

Casey Whitman

Great, very helpful. Good quarter.

Operator

And our next question comes from David Bishop from FIG Partners. Your line is open.

David Bishop

Good morning, gentlemen. Just curious what - I don't know if you have in terms of the average loan yields. How does that sort of trend over the course of the quarter maybe not the beginning of the quarter January versus March was a much of a change in terms of a yields within the commercial and commercial real estate markets?

Ron Paul

For the first time David, we are seeing that opportunity of getting the pricing power that we've been working on for the past six months. So obviously the payoffs are going to be at one rate but the higher rate on the new funding. So that's something that we think - we've talked about before and we're seeing more and more at loan committee in terms of the borrower willing to pay off up where the benefit of Eagle on the certainty of execution and all the reasons that we've been able to maintain the asset side that we have over the year.

So we see that continuing and we haven't gotten really any pushback from where we think is the appropriate rate.

David Bishop

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Ron Paul on Trump’s Border Wall: Totally Useless – Fox Business

Posted: at 12:21 am

Former Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) says President Trump's plan to build a wall along the country's Southern border a "totally useless" idea with low support in border states.

A new poll found that 61% of Texas citizens do not approve of building a wall along the border with Mexico to keep illegal immigrants out. "Im glad that the poll shows that people in Texas dont think much of this wall, Paul told the FOX Business Networks Maria Bartiromo.

"Ive always argued that the walls are going to hinder the American people as much as anybody," Paul said. "If somebody has honestly earned money and they want to walk across the border, they become criminals, you know, they cant do it because they have all these regulations.

In an interviewWednesdayon FOX News, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the wall is essential to shut down illegal immigration--and violent crime caused by immigrants. I think the border wall needs to move rapidly, it will be the final affirmation that the illegality is over.

ButPaul said the Trump administration has yet to explain how rapid construction of a border wall will be paid for.

I think a wall is totally useless and he didnt mention how he was going to pay for that wall, you know, Sessions didnt say a word. Thats billions of dollars, nobody knows what it will cost and it wont work, its so detrimental to the concept of liberty because what it is, theyre treating a symptom rather than saying, our problem is a healthy economy and allowing people to trade freely.

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Libertarian Ideology Protects Capital at Workers’ Expense – The Oberlin Review

Posted: at 12:21 am

Jacob Brittons latest attempt at political debate begins, It was onlya matter of time Indeed, I suppose it was. I cant help but feel that thefirst paragraph of Brittons latest foray into the wide world of politicaleconomy is symptomatic of the bizarre way the right behaves on collegecampuses: They seem fixated on producing disagreement and then howlwith joy and roll around in the mud when they find it (Positive Rights, NotCapitalism, Require State Violence, The Oberlin Review, April 14). Brittonhilariously echoes the meme so much for the tolerant left by accusingme of failing to live up to the lefts benign reputation for the record, Ihave no interest in treating libertarianism benignly in the public sphere.

Britton attempts to make a coherent case for a minimal state by distinguishingbetween what he calls positive and negative rights, an argumentthat is more familiar to the Western philosophical canon as IsaiahBerlins distinction between positive and negative liberty. Positive libertyis affirmative the freedom to act as opposed to negative liberty, whichis freedom from coercive forces. Britton argues that I advocate for the former,while a just state protects only the latter. In his view, negative libertycan be secured without coercive activity on the part of the state becauseit is a natural right. This is absolutely historically and empirically false.Negative liberty even understood in its most limited dimension, for instance,as the freedom to practice any religion always requires a stateapparatus equipped with police and a military ready to defend that right(heard of Europes 30 Year War?). No liberty is simply pre-given, found innature; every right requires violence and coercion behind it to succeed institutionally,and so any distinction Britton hopes to secure between negativeand positive rights on the grounds of naturalness is arbitrary.

Funnily, its not quite totally arbitrary Britton does seem to haveone criterium, to distinguish between positive and negative rights. Everyfreedom Britton associates with positive rights are freedoms the workingclass needs to resist domination. Strange coincidence it is almost as iflibertarianisms talk of human rights is designed to be a defense of capitaland not humans.

Britton says capitalism is not inherently violent because the divisionof labor ensures everyone will have a job. Not only does Adam Smithsconcept of the division of labor have very little to do with the question offull employment, but Smith himself saw a need for state intervention tohelp capital function. Further, Karl Marx demonstrated that the unemployedare a benefit to capital; its only by having an unemployed workerto replace your currently employed worker that you can push your employeeswages down as far as possible. Unemployment is as old as capitalism.Rather than acting as though unemployment is a weird fluke, weshould live up to that reality and challenge the paradigm that reproducesit.

Finally, the big question: Why, oh why, dothose merciless lefties want to violently coercemulti-billionaires to give up their hard-earnedcash? Or, as Britton puts it: If Bill Gates hasa net worth of $80 billion and my net worth is$90,000, what moral atrocity has been committed?Let me explain. Gates made his fortune bygrowing his company Microsoft. That companymakes money by selling computer software,among other things. In order for people to buycomputer software, they have to own computers.In order for them to own computers, someonehas to make the computer. The person whomakes the computer is typically a worker livingin gross poverty in the global south. This workercontracts with a capitalist to trade their laborfor money. If this were a fair exchange, by theend of it, the worker would have money and theboss would have a commodity. In reality, by theend of the exchange, the worker has money andthe boss has a commodity and profit. The profitis the difference in value between the amountof money the boss can get away with paying theworker and the amount of money he can sell thecommodity for. So yes, Gates wealth depends onmoral atrocities, and the working class povertyis proof.

Libertarianism is a weird ideology. It stringstogether a bizarre understanding of politicaleconomy and moral philosophy and forms a pasticheof entrepreneurial individualism and abstractmusings about rights and the legitimatestate. In the end though, with its incoherence,internal inconsistencies and empirical failuresput aside, libertarianism should be measuredin terms of its effects. And its primary effect isto perpetuate a capitalist regime that is builtoff of exploitation. Capitalism is a machine forchanging hopes and dreams into toil and suffering.Libertarianism is ultimately just an abstractweapon, an ideological gear in a larger machineused by the few to dominate the many.

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