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Cincinnati was born and raised, C. David Allis of Rockefeller University shared the 2018 Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research with Michael Grunstein of UCLA. To his left, there is a model of DNA helix.(Photo: provided)

C. David Allis, a biology researcher born in Cincinnati, received Tuesday the country's most prestigious award in medical research, sharing the Lasker 2018 Award for exploring the role of gene structure in childhood cancer and other diseases.

Allis, 67, earned a BSc in Biology from the University of Cincinnati in 1973 and a PhD in Biology from Indiana University in 1978. He has been at Rockefeller University in New York since 2003 and directs the Laboratory of chromatin biology and epigenetics.

The Lasker Prize, established in 1942 by the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation, is a national indicator of scientific achievement so important that nearly 90 recipients have also won Nobel Prizes. The Lasker Prize is worth $ 250,000.

Allis, a 1969 graduate of Woodward High School, shared the award in basic medical research with Michael Grunstein of the University of California at Los Angeles for discoveries about histones, the proteins that pack DNA genetic material into chromosomes. Once considered a mere structural support for DNA, Allis and Grunstein have learned separately that histones influence gene behavior.

"Grunstein and Allis unveiled a previously hidden gene control layer and opened a new field," the Lasker Prize announced.

An exuberant Allis told The Enquirer on Tuesday that a laurel like the Lasker Award is a delightful surprise. "Maybe it's Cincinnati's roots, and I do not mean that negatively, but none of these awards are so remarkable, so unexpected.

"We do what we do in the lab, if we choose to do lab work, because we're really curious about it. It's a rewarding career to move forward. … We are making a lot of progress in science. Maybe others have a moment of experience, but in our case, and in the vast majority of cases, it's the plug, plug, plug

Allis noted that researchers at the Cincinnati Children's Hospital, UC Medical Center and elsewhere in the region have obtained histone lab results and turned them into weapons against brain cancers such as Lauren Hill.

Allis's work has been rewarded. In 2014, he received the $ 3 million Breakthrough Prize, created by the founders of Google and other technology giants of Silicon Valley to reward scientific and medical advances. Allis and his wife, Barbara, donated part of the prize to The Cure Starts Now, a cancer fundraiser in Greater Cincinnati.

About a year ago, the Cincinnati Quotient in the Allis Lab increased when Ben Nacev, also a native of Cincinnati, joined the team to study histones and cancer. "He's great," said Allis. "I'm expecting great things from him."

In addition to Allis and Grunstein, the Lasker Awards were also awarded this year to John B. Glen, inventor of anesthetic propofol, now administered more than 60 million times a year in the United States, and to Joan Argetsinger Steitz for RNA and to coach women scientists.

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