Collaboration

Elvis Costello wants you to listen carefully to the beginning of his new album, a collaboration with songwriter Burt Bacharach called "Painted From Memory."It starts with a song called "In the Darkest Place," a song about the despair that can wash over a man abandoned and denied by his lover. But it isn't the melody or lyric Costello wants us to hear - at least, not just yet.Where he wants our focus is on the introduction. "Listen to how appealing, how intriguing the opening notes of the record are," he says.

OncorMed Inc., a Gaithersburg biotechnology company, said yesterday that it will collaborate on research and development with Incyte Pharmaceuticals Inc., a California-based gene research company.As part of the deal, Incyte is taking a 10 percent equity stake, valued at $3 million, in OncorMed, and can purchase additional shares of stock that would raise its equity stake to 20 percent.Oncor Inc. of Gaithersburg, which financed OncorMed's creation in 1993, is its largest equity holder with 30 percent.

Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson have been collaborators since 1964, and over the years have written or recorded a host of R&B classics, from "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" and "Ain't Nothin' But the Real Thing" to "Found a Cure" and "Solid." But their latest collaboration -- an album of music and poetry recorded with Maya Angelou -- came about almost by accident as the three sat around the piano one Thanksgiving. Ashford, Simpson and Angelou will perform selections from the JTC album they made together, "Been Sound," as well as other songs.

Human Genome Sciences Inc., the Rockville biotechnology company mapping genetic codes, yesterday reported a net loss of $12 million, or 62 cents per share, for the first quarter of 1997.By comparison, the company posted a profit of $4.28 million, or 22 cents per share, for the same period last year.Company executives attributed the difference to a sharp variance in the company's receipt of payments from research and development partners.During the first quarter ending March 31, Human Genome said it received $1.3 million in collaboration revenue.

VISITORS COMING into Worcester, Massachusetts, driv past a billboard that reads, ''Every one of America's great cities has at least one institution of higher education. Worcester has 10.''Baltimore has 22. Yet when the discussion turns to U.S. cities noted for excellence in higher education, Baltimore rarely comes to mind. This is unfortunate. With the creation of the Baltimore Collegetown Network, however, it is about to change.Baltimore's colleges and universities are a diverse group, including research universities, liberal-arts colleges, community colleges and specialty institutions, among others.

ZHUKOVSKY, Russia - In an unusual economic collaboration uniting former Cold War adversaries, a leading manufacturer of Russian warplanes has joined forces with the American aerospace industry to carry out research for a possible supersonic passenger plane for the 21st century.The Tupolev Design Bureau, best known for designing Russia's huge Blackjack bomber, has turned its TU-144 supersonic plane into a flying laboratory.The experiments are being carried out at the behest of top U.S. aerospace companies, who have also produced their share of warplanes and are now interested in determining whether it is economically feasible to build a new civilian plane that could fly at more than twice the speed of sound.

MedImmune Inc., a Gaithersburg-based biotechnology company, said yesterday that it has agreed to collaborate with Rockefeller University to develop a vaccine to prevent or treat illnesses caused by a virulent bacteria, Streptococcus pneumoniae.MedImmune also struck a licensing deal with the New York school for the rights to commercialize any vaccines developed from the collaboration. The two did not disclose financial details of the agreement.The bacteria MedImmune and Rockefeller have targeted is the leading cause of blood stream infections, pneumonia and ear infections in children, and the third leading cause of meningitis.

Tonight, the Fells Point Creative Alliance launches its "Big Show" from 7 to 9 with a gala reception and "ArtWalk." The show, which runs through Nov. 3, features the works of 100 artists at 12 Fells Point locations. Admission is free. Call (410) 276-1651.A story in yesterday's Today section and an item in today's Live section gave the wrong date for the reception. The Sun regrets the errors.As usual, Billie Tolmach had accompanied her husband Eric on a photography expedition. They had just finished burgers at the Poncabird Pub, when they stepped onto a Southeast Baltimore street and jointly experienced the ganglia of ramps and roads stacked above them.

Paris.--If President Clinton can for a moment take his mind off his Whitewater problems, he will find that he at last has a significant foreign-policy success.It is fragile, but real. The United States' decision to push NATO into Bosnian intervention has lifted the siege of Sarajevo and been followed by a successful American diplomatic effort to bring the Croatian and Bosnian governments to form a federation. This agreement is scheduled for signature in Washington within the next few days.

Francois Mitterrand, eight months from honored retirement as president of France, the nation's foremost Man of the Left, Europe's leading surviving Socialist, ill from prostate cancer at 77, perhaps unable to complete his term, has done his nation one final service.He has collaborated on the public revelation of his own squalid past. In so doing, he may -- may -- have helped France to confront its own collaboration with Nazi Germany in the 1940s.The facts brought out with Mr. Mitterrand's help by Pierre Pean in his book, "A French Youth: Francois Mitterrand 1934-47," are clear enough.

WASHINGTON -- The campaign manager for Rep. Albert R. Wynn has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging fundraising improprieties by Donna Edwards, Wynn's chief rival in next month's Democratic primary. The Wynn campaign handed reporters a 34-count complaint yesterday alleging illegal collaboration between the Prince George's activist and several of the organizations supporting her in the 4th District contest. In a statement, Edwards dismissed the complaint as "a desperate 11th-hour attempt" by Wynn "to deflect from the fact that groups representing the core of the Democratic party and the issues it stands for ... have decided that they want to fire him and are supporting me."

Baltimore-based filmmaker Jimmy Joe Roche packs explosive combinations of colors, shapes and textures into his work. A Wham City arts collective member and graduate student at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Roche is on a national tour, performing the surrealist video art and live music presentation Ultimate Reality. Roche is sharing a van with Avant-garde composer/performer Dan Deacon and five other Wham City members for the next week or so until he's due back in school. While on the road, Roche and Deacon began fleshing out an idea for a new film and video performance piece called Take It to the Max. They plan to enlist several other Wham City groups and tour Europe in July.

The Johns Hopkins University will receive about $40 million in new federal funds over the next five years to help translate promising research into medical treatments, school officials announced yesterday. The funds, from the National Institutes of Health, will be used for a new center: the Johns Hopkins Institute for Clinical and Translational Research. The center will be part of a national consortium of 24 institutions that NIH began funding last year in hopes that collaboration among scientists will speed the development of medical breakthroughs.

Human Genome Sciences Inc. yesterday announced a $507 million collaboration with Switzerland's Novartis to develop and commercialize the Rockville biotech's hepatitis C drug, Albuferon. The announcement jolted trading of Human Genome's stock, with shares moving at more than five times the normal volume. Shares rose 41 cents, or 4 percent, to close at $10.60 on the Nasdaq yesterday. Such partnerships are becoming more common in the drug development world. Smaller biotech concerns are often idea-rich, but cash-poor, while big pharmaceutical companies are often in the opposite camp, looking to partner with others to further their drug portfolio.

"I think a big wasted resource in this county is senior citizens," says Bob Spongberg, 79, a retired engineer who lives in Columbia. That is why he has volunteered to work with pupils at Harper's Choice Middle School as part of a new collaboration between the school and the county's Office on Aging. The tutoring sessions pair seniors with pupils for an hour once a week. If the program goes well, other schools might add it. "This particular program is kind of a microcosm of what we envision," said Judi Bard, program specialist for the Howard County Office on Aging.

Collaboration as a Medium Maryland Art Place and Pyramid Atlantic printmaking center both turned 25 this year and are celebrating with an exhibition titled Collaboration as a Medium: 25 Years of Pyramid Atlantic. The exhibit runs through March 4 and includes prints, installation pieces and books by about 70 artists. There will be a gallery talk and reception at 6 p.m. tomorrow. MAP is at 8 Market Place in Power Plant Live. For more information, call 410-962-8565 or visit mdartplace.org.

Early Monday morning, before other visitors arrive, artist Jo Smail introduces her students to the striking, often mysterious, results of artistic collaboration. They have gathered in the gallery at Evergreen House, another stop on Smail's own artistic journey. Her work is part of Conversations, a show which gathers the fruit of dozens of creative alliances between past and present faculty members of the Maryland Institute College of Art and artists outside that community. Some paintings grew from an exchange between a teacher and student, or between artists who are related to one another.

Colorful installations and subdued drawings contrast in Territory/Ambiguity, on display at the Maryland Art Place. Artists Paul Bartow and Richard Metzgar's massive collaboration, a site installation called "Collection Intersection," is bright and busy. Panels of wood, many of which are coated with candy-colored paints, collide with upholstered furniture, industrial building materials and Plexiglas-encased ferric chloride drawings in a large work that fills two of the gallery's three rooms.

Western Maryland College will be host for the 2001 convention of the Maryland State Music Teachers Association on Sunday. Convention chairwoman Judy Ferencz, a private piano instructor and a WMC lecturer, said the program, "A Celebration of the Collaborative Arts," includes workshops, master classes and concerts, all open to the public. Walk-in registration begins at 8 a.m. at Levine Recital Hall. Eight classes are being offered, and participants can choose up to four. A luncheon, with selections from the piano duo of Heather Hancock and Stephen Simmons, is scheduled from noon to 1:15 p.m. The class schedule is: 9 a.m. to 10:15 a.m., "Heart, Rhythm and Dance - Duos from Around the World," Nancy Roldan and Jose Cueto; "Strategies for Healthy Performance," Amy Haufler.

Leading lawmakers served notice to University System of Maryland officials yesterday that they expect it to form a top-level biosciences council to increase research collaboration among its member institutions. Del. Nancy K. Kopp and Sen. Robert R. Neall told Chancellor Donald N. Langenberg and the presidents of four of the institutions that they want the system to develop a comprehensive plan to make the best use of the state's biotechnology research. For the second straight week, the educators came to Annapolis to brief House Appropriations and Senate Budget and Taxation subcommittees on their cooperative efforts in biotech, considered a vital element in Maryland's future economic development.