Laboratories

Johns Hopkins again led all U.S. universities in research and development spending in 2009, according to rankings released Wednesday by the National Science Foundation. Johns Hopkins again led all U.S. universities in research and development spending in 2009, according to rankings released Wednesday by the National Science Foundation. With $1.85 billion in spending on medical, science and engineering research, Hopkins far outpaced second-place University of Michigan's total of $1 billion.

The Hubble Space Telescope's science team in Baltimore has lost one of its original leaders, a physicist whose comprehensive knowledge of the complex observatory helped keep its science operations running smoothly, and astronomers' discoveries rolling in. Rodger Doxsey, head of the Space Telescope Science Institute's Hubble Mission Office, died of cancer Tuesday after entering an area hospice over the weekend. The Towson resident was 62. "Rodger was the heart and soul of Hubble here at the Institute," said STScI's director, Matt Mountain.

Jacquelyn M. Gunning, a former laboratory worker and longtime homemaker, died of cancer July 10 at her Severna Park home. She was 82. Jacquelyn Marie Friedel was born in Baltimore and raised in Towson. She was a 1944 graduate of Mount St. Agnes High School and earned a bachelor's degree in biology from the College of Notre Dame of Maryland in 1948. Before her marriage, Mrs. Gunning worked for the Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. and Hynson Westcott and Dunning, a Baltimore pharmaceutical manufacturer.

ABOARD THE R/V RACHEL CARSON - There may be a swifter, quieter, smoother ride on the Chesapeake Bay, but you'd have to know a dolphin to snag one. With a cold front bearing down and sheets of rain showing up in yellow and green waves on the radar, the state's new 81-foot research vessel, cruised lickety-split from Solomons to Annapolis for yesterday's christening. Two hours and change (like two pennies and a nickel) - 45 nautical miles - from dock to dock. Capt. Mike Reusing, the maestro at the controls of the $4.3 million floating laboratory, maintained a steady 21-knot pace, powered by twin jet-propulsion engines.

The national accrediting agency for crime laboratories will visit Baltimore in the wake of revelations that city lab employees contaminated evidence with their own DNA. Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III asked the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors/Laboratory Accreditation Board to review the lab's "procedures and operations," police spokesman Sterling Clifford said yesterday. Ralph Keaton, director of the accreditation board, said the commissioner called him late last week and "requested a full review of the lab."

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.

Catherine Myers, a retired paint laboratory technician whom Nazi soldiers forced to work at a labor camp during World War II, died of heart disease in her sleep Monday at Locust Lodge in Riviera Beach. The Pasadena resident was 77. Born Katarzyna Prokopczyk, she was raised in a village about 25 miles outside Pinsk, Poland. She lived in a log cabin lighted by a kerosene lamp and heated by a wood stove. By the time she was 8, she was learning Russian in her village school as Soviet soldiers were beginning to occupy Poland.

Richard Lee Anderson, a retired laboratory technician and World War II merchant seaman who helped restore the Liberty ship John W. Brown, died Saturday of complications from a stroke at his Parkville home. He was 84. Mr. Anderson, who was known as Richard or Richie, was born in Baltimore and raised near Clifton Park. After graduating from City College in 1942, he received an appointment to the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, N.Y. Because of the wartime necessity of merchant mariners, Mr. Anderson went to sea in January 1943, after only attending the academy for three months, as a cadet aboard the former Moore-McCormack passenger line S.S. Argentina, which had been converted into a troop carrier.

Louis F. Drummeter Jr., who worked for 32 years at the Naval Research Laboratory and helped design one of the nation's first satellites, died of a heart attack Thursday at St. Agnes Hospital. The Catonsville resident was 86. Dr. Drummeter was responsible for several discoveries, including the creation of medical equipment used in the "blue baby" operation - a procedure that saves infants born with heart defects - and a number of thermal-sensing instruments. Dr. Drummeter was born in Pennsylvania in 1921 and attended public school in Minersville, Pa. He received a bachelor's degree in physics from the Johns Hopkins University in 1943 and his doctorate in physics from Hopkins in 1949.

The Army and a Minnesota-based developer have signed a 50-year lease for about 400 acres at Aberdeen Proving Ground, a project that will bring office space for up to 10,000 civilian defense contractor workers at the expanding base. Opus East LLC, the Rockville subsidiary of the company, plans to break ground at the end of the month on the first building in a business and technology park that will be located inside the 73,000-acre base in Harford County, Army officials said. "This is a good thing for various reasons," said George Mercer, an APG spokesman.