Irvine to Get Sciences Academy Branch

The Washington-based National Academy of Sciences will establish a Western headquarters adjacent to the University of California, Irvine, campus. Arnold Beckman, Orange County philanthropist and founder of Beckman Instruments, said he will underwrite the $20-million facility. A spokesman for the Irvine Co., which is donating the 5 1/2-acre site, said negotiations with the academy, a 1,200-member scientific honor society, are continuing, but a formal announcement is expected in early November. The Irvine facility, Beckman said, will serve as a meeting place where scientists--but also religious people and philosophers--can consider ways to apply their research as well as “ethical concerns like genetic engineering.” The new headquarters will be the second such institution in the area. In March, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a scholastic organization, announced that it is moving its Western regional headquarters from Stanford to the UC Irvine campus.