Laboratories

Charles Lawrence Chambers Sr., a medical laboratory technician, died of colon cancer Thursday at his Northeast Baltimore home. He was 35. Mr. Chambers was born and raised in Baltimore and graduated from Northern High School in 1989. He went on to study biology at Baltimore City Community College and graduated from Sojourner-Douglass College with an associate's degree in specialized technology. He then began working as a lab technician at St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson. In 1992, at a Christmas party at a local club, Mr. Chambers ran into Doretha Ann Batten, whom he had known from his college days.

Lewis H. Battee, a retired laboratory manager and avid crabber, died June 14 of pneumonia at Mercy Hospital in Oklahoma City. The former Linthicum Heights resident was 95. Born one of nine in Baltimore and raised near Patterson Park, Mr. Battee was the son of a city police officer and a homemaker. He dropped out of city public schools when he was 15 to help support his family. He went to work at the Koppers Co. and rose through the ranks. At the time of his 1977 retirement, he was head of Koppers' metrology laboratory.

When Sandy Rosenblatt looked in the mirror, the striking brunette could see nothing but one big flaw — her eyes, which were sunken and seemed a little dark. So at 34 she had a plastic surgeon smooth them over. While she was there, she decided to have her long oval face made a little cheekier and her brows a little less creased. Since then the Sterling, Va., resident has had to return to her doctor in Baltimore several times a year for new applications of commercial fillers and wrinkle removers, a drawback of such products.

J. Mehsen Joseph, who served as Laboratories Administration director for the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene since 1977, died Wednesday at St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson of complications from diabetes. He was 74 and had worked at the department for 46 years. Born in Whitesville, W.Va., Dr. Joseph was the first in his family to attend college. His parents were Lebanese immigrants. At age 20, after graduating from West Virginia University in three years, he went on to Columbia University for his master's degree.

I'm a 46-year-old investor and own shares of Abbott Laboratories. What are the prospects for the company? - F.M., Chicago This broad-based pharmaceutical firm must continually contend with new competition from generic versions of drugs, such as its Synthroid thyroid medication and Tricor cholesterol drug. It has done a pretty good job of meeting those challenges, with Synthroid doing better than expected and a newly formulated version of Tricor being marketed. It also recently received Food and Drug Administration approval for the use of Prevacid, marketed jointly with Takeda Chemical industries, as a short-term treatment for acid reflux disease for those between ages 12 and 17. Abbott Laboratories' earnings were up 5.6 percent in its past quarter as sales of its new drug Humira tripled.

Anna E. "Betty" Sener, a retired laboratory technician and homemaker, died of complications from cancer treatment Thursday at Plaza Regency Comprehensive Care Center in Las Vegas. The former Northwood resident was 86. Anna Elizabeth Dietz was born in Baltimore and raised on West Cold Spring Lane and in Pimlico. She was a 1940 Forest Park High School graduate. She joined the Coast Guard during World War II and was stationed in New Orleans as a yeoman second class. Family members said she recalled positioning model ships on a large map of the Gulf of Mexico.

A United Church of Christ minister who was protesting weapons research outside the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in North Laurel yesterday was arrested and charged with trespassing. John Dyer Oliver, 54, of the 2000 block of N. Norhurst Way in Catonsville, was one of eight people, all members of Baltimore Emergency Response Network (BERN), who were protesting on the sidewalk outside the building about 12:30 p.m. The activists carried signs protesting weapons in space and sang songs, according to one protester.

You may not like Ralph Fessler's proposals for overhauling teacher education in Maryland, but it's hard to argue that he doesn't know his subject matter. The former elementary school teacher, principal and administrator now directs the Johns Hopkins University's Division of Education.His specialty: the professional training of teachers.So last year, when the state's school superintendent and commissioner of higher education jointly appointed a task force to redesign teacher education, it was hardly a stretch when they asked Dr. Fessler, 51, to be chairman.

Police arrested seven peace activists, including Philip F. Berrigan, at the Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory yesterday during a demonstration in which ashes were spread on the grounds to symbolize destruction from nuclear weapons.The protesters, all members of the Baltimore Emergency Response Network (BERN), were arrested about 8 a.m. yesterday when 15 members blocked an employee gate at the 365-acre site in Columbia, police said. Besides trespassing to spread ashes on the sidewalks and grounds, police said, the protesters distributed and posted leaflets.

Robert Edward Sheridan Jr., a member of the Army's Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense who established a neurophysiology laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Ground, died in his sleep of undetermined causes Feb. 7 at his Catonsville home. He was 53. Dr. Sheridan was born in Darby, Pa., and raised in Fort Collins, Colo. He earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1972 from Colorado State University and a master's degree and a doctorate in neurophysiology and biochemistry from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.