Beckman Gets Federal Grant for Genetic Research : Medicine: The company will receive $4.5 million and join others in helping to develop an automated analyzer.

Beckman Instruments Inc. said Monday that it has been chosen to receive $4.5 million of a $9.2-million grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce to help develop an automated genetic analyzer.

Beckman, based in Fullerton, and the seven other companies, universities and laboratories taking part in the five-year research endeavor will match the government’s grant. Beckman will contribute $4.5 million to the total $18.4-million research effort, company spokeswoman Elke Eastman said.

The Commerce Department’s advance research program awarded several matching grants last week to consortia trying to develop useful technologies that hold promise for marketability.

An automated gene analyzer would allow doctors to diagnose inherited diseases more easily, researchers to develop new agricultural food strains, and police scientists to conduct genetic “fingerprinting” more accurately to link suspects with a crime scene, said Jeff Quint, a senior staff scientist at Beckman.

In medicine, for instance, doctors would be able to test prospective parents for 100 to 200 of the genetic defects that cause cystic fibrosis, Quint said.

“To do that today is too labor intensive,” he said. “You can’t run all those tests (with today’s techniques), so you run three or four major ones and just hope the person you’re dealing with in genetic counseling doesn’t have one of the rare genetic mutations.”