The House of Representatives approved a bill Tuesday providing $21.1 million for construction of the world's largest human nutrition research center adjacent to Tufts New England Medical Center. The bill, which has already passed the Senate, now awaits President Carter's signature.

The center will conduct research on the nutritional requirements of human adults, with special emphasis on the needs of the aged. Federal funds will finance the center's expected annual budget of $8 million.

Close Ties

Dorothy Campbell, special assistant for the health sciences to Tufts University President Jean Mayer, said yesterday the center, which will be owned and operated by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), will maintain a "close relationship" with Tufts.

"Many of the scientists at the center will also teach at Tufts," Campbell said, adding that faculty from Harvard, MIT and other institutions could conduct research through the center.

"We haven't really worked out the details of how the research will be allocated and conducted," Steven King, USDA regional administrator of the northeast region, said yesterday. A planning committee, which is expected to include Robert Geyer, chairman of the Department of Nutrition, will meet in October to work out administrative details, he added.

Mayer first proposed the establishment of a center for research in human nutrition in 1977. House Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill supported the proposal and presented it to a House-Senate conference for inclusion on the 1979 Agriculture Department Appropriations bill.

"There are so many types of people in the Boston area, so much ethnic diversity. Boston is really a mini-country. It's a good location for research into the nutritional needs of the urban elderly," Greg O'Meara, legislative assistant to Rep. O'Neill, said yesterday.

Construction is scheduled to begin in the summer of 1979 and should be completed by March of 1981.