Michael Berns

UC Irvine's Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic has received $4.1 million from the National Institutes of Health to expand a program that gives access to advanced laser and optical imaging technologies to researchers worldwide. The award supports the institute's Laser Microbeam and Medical Program for five years and represents a significant increase from the program's previous grant, which totaled $2 million over three years.

UC Irvine has landed its second major defense-conversion project involving lasers, and the new, $1.3-million study could result in a new industry in Orange County, a university official said Monday. "We think this research could lead to commercial companies' manufacturing miniaturized lasers here in Orange County," said Michael Berns, director of UCI's Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic.

Dr. Michael W. Berns, a pioneer in laser medicine at UC Irvine and director of the Beckman Laser Institute, has been named to the university's Arnold and Mabel Beckman Chair. The appointment, announced Thursday by Chancellor Jack W. Peltason, came 6 weeks after Berns said he was considering a move to the University of Southern California. At about the same time, the Beckman Laser Institute and USC entered into a partnership to seek a $15-million federal grant to develop a new laser technology.

Advanced Interventional Systems Inc., a maker of lasers for heart surgery, said Thursday it will lay off 30 workers in Irvine because of uncertainty over President Clinton's health plan and because it recently canceled its proposed merger with a Colorado medical devices firm. In addition, two company directors, Raymond Williams and Charles French, have resigned. The layoffs reduce the number of employees at the company's Irvine headquarters from 100 to about 70.

For the first time in Southern California, a combination of laser probe and computer imaging has been used to open a blocked artery in a leg, according to UC Irvine Medical Center officials. The laser angioplasty was the first of 20 such procedures UCI plans to perform, under federal Food and Drug Administration permission.

The event: Donors to the Pacific Symphony gathered at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre on the Fourth of July for a star-spangled concert and picnic. Strike up the band: With the theme "All-American Anthem," conductor David Bishop led the orchestra in selections from works by Joplin ("Treemonisha"), Kern ("Show Boat") and Bernstein ("Overture to Candide"). The Spirit Chorale of Los Angeles, directed by Byron Smith, sang a modern arrangement of the gospel standard "Elijah Rock."

Dr. Michael W. Berns, director of UC Irvine's Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic and a pioneer in microsurgery, will be host to a public colloquium at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 30 in the institute's library. Described as a conversation rather than a lecture, the colloquium will focus on research being conducted at the institute into surgery so precise it can alter genes within single cells.

Experts on laser technology will honor Orange County industrialist Arnold Beckman and his wife, Mabel, with a program of lectures today at the UC Irvine Nelson Research Auditorium. The free event begins at 1:30 p.m. with a discussion of the history and future of laser technology by Arthur L. Schawlow, a Stanford University physics professor and 1981 Nobel Laureate. At 2:20 p.m.

When Soviet officials first mentioned that they were adding two more children to a student exchange program, instructors and parents at the host school, Olympus High in Salt Lake City, were alarmed. As English teacher Carol Spackman recounted Monday, the Soviet officials warned in a communique that the two extra children had "cancer spots." Actually, neither 12-year-old Vladimir Kozolov nor 17-year-old Natalia Lebedeva has cancer.

The doctors said Sid Vicious, the snake, was a perfect patient. But dealing with the news media, they said, was a zoo. Sid Vicious, an 8-foot boa constrictor owned by Mission Viejo High School, underwent laser treatment at UC Irvine on Thursday afternoon for cancer of the mouth. Laser specialists and veterinarians working on the snake proclaimed the therapy a success. But "the flash cameras in the operating room were driving me crazy," one veterinarian said.