President Brody speaks at annual meeting of the Greater Homewood Corp.

As featured speaker at this year's annual meeting of the Greater Homewood Community Corp., Johns Hopkins President William R. Brody outlined the university's integral, committed and "symbiotic" relationship with all its neighboring communities.

Founded in 1967, the Greater Homewood Community Corp. is a nonprofit organization that represents north-central Baltimore's 40 neighborhoods.

The event, held in Homewood's Mattin Center, drew nearly 80 people, including GHCC leadership and representatives of other local community organizations. Other Hopkins administrators in attendance were Linda Robertson, the university's new and first vice president for government, community and public affairs; Jerome Schnydman, executive assistant to the president; Derek Savage, deputy general counsel and GHCC board member; and Salem Reiner, coordinator of community relations.

In his speech, Brody underscored the university's continued physical growth, its volunteer efforts and the ways in which Hopkins affiliates are making direct community contributions.

"I believe the ideal relationship between Baltimore and Johns Hopkins is symbiotic: Each has something to give that the other needs," Brody said. "We are glad to be able to contribute a great deal to the local economy and the well-being of the city. The community, in turn, provides an environment that supports and aids the work we do in education, research and health care."

In his opening remarks, Brody said the location of the meeting was a fitting one, as it was held in the Mattin Center's Ross Jones Building, named after the university's former vice president and secretary, who was a founding member of Greater Homewood Community Corp.

Hopkins CIO Stephanie Reel recognized as visionary leader

Stephanie Reel, CIO and vice provost for information technology, was recently recognized with a 20/20 Vision Award from CIO magazine for innovative leadership in information technology. The Oct. 1 issue honors 20 creators and marketers of technology and 20 practitioners who use IT "to make great things happen." As one of the latter group, Reel was lauded, in her role as CIO of the health system, for championing Hopkins' electronic patient record system, which has received many medical and IT awards.

James Bond film premiere to benefit cardiovascular center

Die Another Day, the 20th James Bond film, will have its East Coast premiere in Baltimore as a benefit for the Dana and Albert "Cubby" Broccoli Center for Aortic Diseases in the Division of Cardiac Surgery at Johns Hopkins Medicine. The film, whose world premiere will be in London on Nov. 18, stars Pierce Brosnan and Halle Berry.

Best known as the producer, along with his wife, Dana, of the James Bond film series, the late Cubby Broccoli was treated successfully at Hopkins for a life-threatening aneurism in 1994. In 1996 the couple provided a gift to establish the center.

The gala event, to be held on Wednesday, Nov. 20, at the Senator Theatre, will begin at 7 p.m. with a champagne reception prior to the 8 p.m. screening. Tickets are $100. Goldfinger sponsorships are $1,000 and include two tickets for a cocktail reception at 5:30 p.m. at Pimlico Race Course and roundtrip limousine service to the theater.

For ticket and sponsorship information, call 410-502-8901 or go to www.hopkinsmedicine.org/bondpremiere.

APL to host Army Defense Biotechnology Center

The Applied Physics Laboratory has received a $1.74 million contract to begin initial activities for organizing and managing the Army Defense Biotechnology Center, to be located on APL's campus. The center, a national biotechnology Center of Excellence, will team Army government agencies, universities and industry in projects to conduct Army research and develop, test and deliver innovative biotechnologies and related training.

As a manager and adviser, APL will foster critical contributions in the creation of new defenses against weapons of mass destruction, biosensors and biomaterials, better pharmaceuticals and nutritional supplements, improved medical diagnostics, environmentally sensitive manufacturing processes and other bio-breakthroughs in metabolic engineering, genomics and proteomics.

SAIS to hold discussion on civilian leadership in wartime

The next forum in the SAIS Faculty Book Series will feature a discussion of Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen and Leadership in Wartime (Free Press), a book written by Eliot Cohen, director of the Strategic Studies Program. The event will take place at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 23, in the Nitze Building.

Cohen's introductory remarks will be followed by a panel discussion about the book and civilian leadership in wartime. Panelists will be Karl Jackson, director of the SAIS Asian Studies Program; Michael Mandelbaum, director of the SAIS American Foreign Policy Program; and Ronald Spector, professor of history and international affairs at George Washington University's Elliot School of International Affairs.

Rapid, portable malaria detector is under development

An APL-led Hopkins team is developing a field-portable, mass spectrometer-based system able to conduct rapid mass screenings for malaria, a disease that felled more combatants during the Vietnam War than bullets and afflicts more than a half billion people each year.

The system detects heme molecules that have been separated from hemoglobin by the malarial parasite while inside the red blood cells. The system has potential for large-scale, low-cost screenings since the test requires only a single drop of blood and a small amount of reagent, and a technician can process multiple samples in a matter of seconds to minutes, depending on the desired sensitivity.