UCLA scientist’s house set on fire

Authorities are investigating a fire caused by a device left today at a house owned by a UCLA professor who conducts animal research – the second time the house has been targeted in less than four months.

The device was placed this morning on the front porch of a house owned by Edythe London, FBI officials in Los Angeles said.

London, a professor of psychiatry and bio-behavioral sciences and of molecular and medical pharmacology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, uses lab monkeys in her research on nicotine addiction.

FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller confirmed that officials with the Joint Terrorism Task Force were investigating the incident.

“It was ignited and caused damage to the property,” Eimiller said. “No one was home at the time and nobody was hurt.”

Eimiller said no one had claimed responsibility. But the agency is investigating the claim that the Animal Liberation Front used a garden hose to flood London’s house Oct. 20 in an attempt to stop her animal experiments.

Authorities are also probing ties between that vandalism and a June incident in which an incendiary device was lighted, but did not explode, next to a car at the home of a UCLA eye disease researcher.

In an op-ed piece in The Times last November, London wrote that researchers should not give in to intimidation and violence. “To me, nothing could be more important than solving the mysteries of addiction and learning how we can restore a person’s control over his or her own life,” London wrote. “We must not allow these extremists to stop important research that advances the human condition.”

andrew.blankstein@latimes.com

greg.krikorian@latimes.com