Seattle Genetics Inc said on Monday the U.S. Food and Drug Administration lifted a clinical hold on several early stage studies testing its experimental cancer drug.

The FDA imposed the clinical hold in December after the company reported the deaths of four people in trials testing the experimental cancer drug, vadastuximab talirine.

Seattle Genetics said on Monday the clinical hold was resolved through a comprehensive study evaluating more than 300 patients and amendments to further enhance safety.

The company said it would resume two early-stage trials and initiate a mid-stage trial of vadastuximab talirine in 2017, in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a type of blood cancer.

The drug would continue to be tested in an ongoing late-stage study in older AML patients, the company said.

AML is a type of cancer in which the bone marrow makes abnormal myeloblasts (a type of white-blood cell), red blood cells, or platelets.

Vadastuximab talirine, which has an orphan drug status from both the U.S. FDA and European regulators for the treatment of AML, is also being tested in patients with myelodysplastic syndrome, another form of blood cancer.

Last month, Seattle Genetics entered into a development and licensing deal worth up to $2 billion with Immunomedics Inc to bolster its cancer drug pipeline.

Up to Friday's close, Seattle Genetics' shares had risen about 15 percent since the deal with Immunomedics.

(Reporting by Akankshita Mukhopadhyay in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)

LONDON Three neuroscientists won the world's most valuable prize for brain research on Monday for pioneering work on the brain's reward pathways - a system that is central to human and animal survival as well as disorders such as addiction and obesity.

TG Therapeutics Inc said a combination of its experimental cancer drug, ublituximab, and approved treatment Imbruvica was found to be more effective in high-risk leukemia patients, compared with Imbruvica as a standalone therapy.

OncoCyte Corp, which is developing diagnostics in the fledgling field of liquid biopsies, said on Monday a 300-patient validation study of its blood test for early detection of lung cancer has confirmed the accuracy reported from a prior trial.

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Seattle Genetics to resume trials as FDA lifts clinical hold - Reuters

Different levels of anxiety complement different activities, report scientists who have previously studied anxiety. Likewise, anxiety induced by mathematical activities comes in varying levels, but researchers now conclude that anxiety surrounding mathematics, in particular, may be genetic.

Researchers from Kings College London tested anxiety levels in participants while they completed tasks, such as reading a map and solving simple geometry problems.

The population sample consisted of nearly 1,500 pairs of twins who were selected from the Twins Early Development Study, a twin study based in the United Kingdom. The researchers contacted over 16,000 families with twins born between 1994 and 1996 to take part in the study. Currently, 10,000 twins are still in the process of contributing to the study. Each family resides in either England or Wales.

Researchers selected twins to measure anxiety surrounding mathematics as a genetic predisposition. Each twin shared at least 50 percent of the DNA with the other twin. Each set of twins was evaluated using The Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-item Scale, a test used to determine anxiety disorders in clinical cases. GAD-7 results help identify signs of panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and social anxiety. The scale asks participants to rate seven problems on a scale of one to four, which respectively covers the range between not at all bothered to bothered nearly every day.

Kings College researchers had study participants test anxiety levels through certain tasks, including geometry problems. Photo by: Calvin Rong

Researchers also modified the Abbreviated Math Anxiety Scale to specifically determine the level of anxiety caused by mathematics. The AMAS uses a five-point scale to determine how anxious participants are when confronted with nine math-related activities. Examples include reading a math book or listening to a math lecture. All of the participants had already left school, so researchers also slightly modified the examples.

The researchers also tested a measure of spatial anxiety among the participants. Spatial thinking involves activities such as mental navigation, mental rotation and spatial visualization. The test asked participants to rate how comfortable they were with finding their way around meandering streets, using a shortcut without a map and following instructions to get to a new location. To measure rotation and visualization, participants were asked about their comfort level with completing a jigsaw puzzle or mentally rotating objects and figures.

Regarding gender differences and anxiety associated with math, the study writes: Socio-cultural factors, such as the gender stereotype surrounding mathematics and, more generally, [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] subjects may contribute to these observed sex differences in anxiety. For example, women who value mathematics, and are acquainted with the social stereotype that women tend not to do as well as men in mathematics, tend to be the most sensitive to the pressure of gender stereotype and to feel anxious about mathematics.

The study examines the link between spatial and mathematical abilities and success in STEM fields and concludes that anxiety may prevent people from reaching success in those professions. Lack of motivation to perform these skills may also deter people from exercising or trying them.

The researchers identified and accounted for different forms of anxiety, such as general anxiety, mathematical anxiety and spatial anxiety.

The results consistently revealed that each form of anxiety showed a strong genetic connection to each individual twin who participated in the study, indicating that anxiety may be a genetically determined quality. Differences in spatial anxiety, in particular, were not pinpointed to a cause. However, researchers speculate that the difference in twins levels of spatial anxiety can be attributed to the fact that they take part in different extracurricular activities and have different teachers or different groups of friends.

Anxiety associated with math directly correlates with less involvement in math-based programs. It also disables and discourages students from pursuing or further developing math skills.

This study can further assist in helping to pinpoint anxiety-inducing factors in children and students in an academic setting. It can help educators and parents predict the topics in which anxiety will most likely arise and whom it will most likely affect. This may enable educators to prepare interventions to help students get over this anxiety and increase their individual performance in areas where math is required or expected.

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Genetics impacts feelings of anxiety surrounding mathematics - The Ticker

Mirror photo by Cherie Hicks Michael Farrow sits in his Altoona home next to an 1850 marble fireplace that came from his aunts house in Philadelphia. The author of Altoonas Historic Mishler Theatre will receive the 2016 Angel of the Arts award from the Blair County Foundation on Saturday.

Michael Farrow was educated in human genetics and spent a career in the emerging field. But he has spent his retirement indulging his love of history and the arts, roused by youthful summers spent at his grandparents in Philadelphia.

He researched and wrote Altoonas Historic Mishler Theatre, published last year. For that, the Blair County Arts Foundation is honoring him with its 2016 Angel of the Arts award at its annual dinner on Saturday.

He devoted three years of his life to it and is giving all the proceeds to the Mishler, said Kate Shaffer, BCAF executive director.

She said the 174-page hardback book created a magnificent retrospective of the Mishlers past, present and potential.

Farrow said the award surprises him because even though he was born and mostly raised in Altoona, he went away for his college and career.

Im just somebody who came back to town (six) years ago after being gone for years, he said.

Farrow wasnt supposed to grow up here. Less than a year after he was born, his father, a medical doctor, took the family and his practice to a Boston suburb to take care of soldiers returning from World War II.

But, in 1943, when Farrow was 4, his father contracted strep throat from a patient and died; penicillin, only recently discovered, was not widely available.

The family eventually returned to Altoona, where Farrow attended Adams Elementary, Roosevelt Junior High and Altoona High, graduating in 1957. Summers were spent crisscrossing Philadelphia for its historical sites, museums and art.

For 12 years, I was immersed in all this history, said Farrow.

Although his grandparents were of Lebanese descent having immigrated in the late 19th century they lived near a neighborhood of working-class Italian immigrants, who would sit on their front stoops, talk and listen to music blaring from inside. That is where Farrow picked up his love of opera.

He bragged on the Altoona schools music programs, and he was in the band. He also spent a lot of time in movie theaters there were 10 in Altoona in the 1950s, he noted.

Farrow didnt consider music or art as a career because he was afraid he would end up as a teacher, an occupation he didnt want.

Just as he was getting his bachelors in biology from Juniata College in 1961, details of DNA were emerging, even though research had been devoted to agriculture.

Farrow then went to West Virginia University, earning his masters and doctorate in human genetics in 1970. He spent a one-year fellowship as a genetic counselor at WVU, fielding questions from mothers in the regions hollows and researching drugs used in leukemia patients.

Genetics was an up and coming field and the more I got into it, I found it fascinating, he said.

Drug companies began studying how their drugs and chemicals affected human genetics. Farrow went to work for Wyeth in Philadelphia, creating its first genetics lab and conducting tests to determine the toxicologic effect of chemicals and drugs on bacteria, animals and humans.

Then the federal Environmental Protection Agency began researching the effects of pesticides on humans and contracted with research companies to set up testing procedures. Farrow left Wyeth for Washington, D.C., and got in on the ground floor of breakthrough government research.

He worked for several contractors, building genetics laboratories, developing testing protocols and researching the effects of pesticides and drugs on humans. He spent the last two dozen years of his career working to get drugs and chemicals registered for government controls.

Farrow retired in 2005 and decided five years later to return to Altoona to be near his siblings after his mother died.

He delved into history research, publishing his first book on all those movie theaters he had visited as a youngster. Now Showing: A History of Altoona and Blair County Theatres was published in 2013 and sold out in two months.

Then he took a month off before starting Altoonas Historic Mishler Theatre.

Farrow now works on myriad projects for the Blair County Historical Society and its Baker Mansion, as a board member, and researching historical venues and conducting lectures and tours, such as historical neighborhoods and churches.

The fourth-generation Lebanese-American also plans to write a history on the 100 or so families that immigrated from Lebanon and Syria to Altoona well over a century ago.

If you really love something that doesnt have a lot of opportunities, make it your hobby and make a living at something you love as well, he said.

That hobby, he said, also helps him support causes that he loves.

I like Altoona and all the arts. They need money, he said. How can I support them if Im not a millionaire? I can lend my talent. Plus I get a high finding the history and these little unknown tidbits that are fascinating.

Mirror Staff Writer Cherie Hicks is at 949-7030.

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History is Altoona man's hobby, and genetics is livelihood - Altoona Mirror

Worldwide, at least US$3 billion is spent every year on genetics research, with half coming from governments. Yet less than 3% of this is spent on research addressing how to incorporate genetics into medical practice, and even less is spent applying genetics to the prevention of disease.

Right now, optimism about the potential of genetics is high. Breakthroughs in genetics are reported with enthusiasm, and genetics research continues to comprise a large proportion of all funded research. Funding is often awarded because researchers claim once we understand the genetic components of a disease like cancer, we will be able to better predict, prevent, and even cure disease. Future cures are often reported long before theyre available.

However, some scientists and medical specialists are starting to question whether the money invested in genetic research is well spent. Are we getting the promised benefits from this investment?

Do people want genetic testing?

Heres an example in which genetic testing applies. Once a person is found to have a hereditary colorectal cancer syndrome, usually after a diagnosis of colorectal cancer, all members of the family can be offered genetic testing for the particular genetic mutation found in the person with cancer.

Family members found positive can then be screened more intensively to prevent future colorectal cancers. Those found not to carry the mutation will not need intensive screening, despite the family history. Research on how this works in practice has found that only about half (56%) of nearly 2,000 eligible family members underwent testing. Those untested were also less likely (compared to those tested) to undergo other forms of screening for colorectal cancer.

We know that for most people who have predictive genetic testing, the process is psychologically beneficial and improves their risk perception. But we know less about the attitudes of people in the community, outside of academic institutions and specialist clinics, who are not having testing. Along with colleagues at the University of Melbourne, I study how genetic testing is received in Australia.

We have previously found only 56% of 862 people offered predictive genetic testing for hereditary colorectal cancer as part of their participation in a research study actually went ahead with a test, and received their results. Earlier, we found similarly low rates of uptake for hereditary breast cancer.

Why dont people want genetic testing?

We recently published the results of a study that explored the reasons these people declined genetic testing.

We interviewed 33 men and women who declined the offer of genetic testing and found they were at one of four stages in the process of declining genetic testing:

1) uninformed

2) weak intention

3) conditionally declining

4) unconditionally declining.

Four were considered uninformed because they had not understood the offer, so were not in a position to make a decision. Nine described a weak intention to have genetic testing. They knew there was a test available, and they understood some aspects of it, but they were putting off going ahead with the test because they were not convinced the benefits would outweigh the risks.

Another nine participants were conditionally declining testing, as they had decided not to pursue testing now, but felt they may change their minds in the future. Their reasons for not wanting testing were either that it wouldnt make much difference, or there would be negative side effects of testing. The latter includes increased worry from a positive result, or concerns it would impact access to life insurance products (premiums could rise or they could be declined cover).

The largest group of 11 participants were unconditional decliners who, unlike the other groups, could not imagine going ahead with genetic testing either now or in the future. While the reasons were similar to the previous groups, they were not open to changing their mind.

So what does this mean for genetic testing?

This research reveals several things first, that community understanding of predictive genetic testing is poor in some groups, and second, the value assigned to this testing is far lower than the hype around genetic discoveries would suggest.

Third, it reveals that significant structural barriers stand in the way of genetic testing, particularly the concern life insurance companies can use genetic test information to refuse cover or adjust premiums.

If genetic tests are going to fulfil their promise of contributing to cancer prevention, they need to be seen as something of value, and they need to reach everybody in the community, not just a select few. There needs to be more effort spent engaging with the intended recipients of new technology, and potential barriers, earlier in the process.

Its foolish to ignore the perceptions, assumptions, and concerns of the very people who are meant to use the technology. Predictive genetic testing for hereditary colorectal cancer is in some ways a straightforward test, with clear consequences for medical management. Yet this testing is far from mainstream or acceptable for the people we spoke to.

Its time to devote more than 3% of funding to translation, to ensure scientific advances in genetics result in improved human health and we get value for the whole society from the money spent on research.

Louise Keogh receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research, Victorian Cancer Agency and the National Institutes of Health

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Why it might be time to reconsider the money spent on genetics research - EconoTimes