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The Gazette
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GAITHERSBURG | MONTGOMERY VILLAGE
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Wednesday, July 31, 2013
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Great Seneca labs mull cybernetwork
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Life Sciences Corridor could get boost from system n
BY
SYLVIA CARIGNAN STAFF WRITER
Research organizations in the Great Seneca Life Sciences Corridor are considering the creation of a common cyberinfrastructure that would facilitate sharing and spur innovative ideas. Anil Srivastava, president of Open Health Systems Laboratory on Johns Hopkins University’s Montgomery County campus, proposed the idea and held a meeting Monday with physicians, university faculty and representatives from Cisco Systems, Montgomery County government, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, MedImmune and other organizations. Srivastava emphasized the need for a network that fosters communication between organizations and transfers large vol-
Girl, 10, died in 2008 crash; driver convicted of manslaughter
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After years, Midcounty Highway plan looms Road would link with Clarksburg BY SYLVIA CARIGNAN AND VIRGINIA TERHUNE STAFF WRITERS
Upcounty residents were briefed last week on plans for Midcounty Highway’s northern extension ahead of a public hearing planned for next week. Montgomery County staff talked to residents at Rocky Hill Middle School in Clarksburg on July 24. The highway, which is partially complete, will stretch from Gaithersburg to Ridge Road in Clarksburg. According to county documents,
M-83, or the Midcounty Highway, was first listed in the county’s master plan in the 1960s. Three miles of the highway have been built between Shady Grove Road in Gaithersburg and Montgomery Village Avenue. “This is a major milestone. [Officials] are about ready to make a decision after nine years of talking,” said Bruce Johnston, chief of the county’s Transportation Engineering Division, who briefed about 20 people at the meeting on the status of the project. Residents may give their opinions about preferred routes at a formal hearing held by the Maryland Department of the Environment and the Army Corps of Engineers on Aug. 7.
See NETWORK, Page A-10
Court: Bar not liable in drunken-driving death
TOM FEDOR/THE GAZETTE
Rosslyn Omala of Gaithersburg (left) is paired with Laura Morales, also of Gaithersburg, as they rotate partners during a dance lesson from DC Casineros Dance Company members during the Latin Music and Dance Festival on Friday evening at the Gaithersburg City Hall concert pavilion. The Afro-Bop Alliance provided live music.
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umes of data between them in the science corridor. “All of that has become very, very essential to biomedical research,” Srivastava said. The corridor, located west of Interstate 270 at the southern border of the city of Gaithersburg and northern border of the city of Rockville, is a 900-acre concentration of universities, clinics and biotech companies. Future additions are slated to include the Corridor Cities Transitway, more commercial square footage and residential units. Srivastava said there is “hardly any cyberinfrastructure in place to support the 21st century life sciences.” Data analysis on a large scale necessitates more powerful technology and networks with greater capacity, according to documents from the National Cancer Institute, a new addition to the Johns Hopkins campus in Montgomery County. David McDonough, senior
“We’ll have large plans for each route so you can find your house,” Johnston said. Several alternatives have been presented for the highway’s route, including an option where no highway is built. The previous list of 11 alternatives has been narrowed to six, including the no-build option, named Alternative 1. Alternative 2 would improve 16 congested intersections on Md. 355, the existing Midcounty Highway, Snouffer School Road and Stedwick Road. According to documents from the Montgomery County Department of Transportation, this option would consist of “low-cost”
BY JULIE
ZAUZMER
THE WASHINGTON POST
Bars in Maryland cannot be held liable for injuries their patrons cause after they leave, Maryland’s highest court ruled Thursday in a 4 to 3 vote. The grandparents of a 10-year-old girl who was killed when a drunken driver hit their family car in 2008 sued the Gaithersburg bar that served Michael Eaton, the driver, 21 drinks before he hit the road. But the Court of Appeals ruled that the bar, Dogfish Head Alehouse, is not liable
See HEARING, Page A-10
for the crash. In 43 states and Washington, D.C., according to statistics compiled by Mothers Against Drunk Driving, vendors of alcohol can be held liable in at least some circumstances for accidents that occur after they serve drinks to a visibly intoxicated customer. Maryland, Virginia and Delaware are among the seven states that lack “dram-shop” liability provisions, as they are known. The others are Kansas, Nebraska, Nevada and South Dakota. The Rev. William Warr Jr. and his wife, Angela Warr, had hoped to change that in Maryland. In August 2008, Eaton ordered 17 beers and several drinks of hard liquor, including a shot of tequila
See BAR, Page A-10
County police lab puts crime under microscope n
Scientists, analysts break down cases in Gaithersburg facility BY
ST. JOHN BARNED-SMITH STAFF WRITER
With tweezers, Leah King takes a pinch out of a small, leafy bud. She drops it in a vial and adds a few drops of chemicals. “It’s going to turn a nice, dark purple,” she predicts, giving the vial a couple of swirls. Sure enough, in just a few seconds, the solution fizzes deep purple, showing that the sample is likely strong, high-quality marijuana.
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Montgomery Village residents help drive golf course development at workshop held by Monument Realty.
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“If you were looking to smoke, this would be the stuff,” joked King, the technical leader of the Forensic Chemistry Unit in Montgomery County Police’s Crime Laboratory. The lab processes evidence connected to the thousands of arrests police officers make and the hundreds of cases they investigate every year. The nationally certified lab takes up a swath of the fifth floor of Montgomery County’s new public safety headquarters, tucked away next to a bucolic lake on Edison Park Drive in Gaithersburg. The lab — which moved, along with the rest of the department, earlier this year from the department’s old home in Rockville —
looks like a cross between a suburban office and a high school lab on steroids. Five units — Firearms Examinations, Latent Prints, Forensic Biology, Forensic Chemistry, and Crimes Scenes — operate in the lab, which takes up about 20,000 square feet, according to lab director Ray Wickenheiser. A sixth unit, Electronic Crimes, also falls under the lab’s authority, but operates under Montgomery County Police’s Financial Crimes section, said Jackie Raskin-Burns, the lab’s quality manager. Thirty scientists work in the lab. An additional eight, all sworn police officers,
See CRIME, Page A-10
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Leah King, technical leader of the Forensic Chemistry Unit, works in the Montgomery County Crime Lab in Gaithersburg.
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