表观遗传学开拓者、染色质生物学先驱查尔斯•戴维•阿利斯 (C. David Allis) 的猝然离世，立即引发生物医学界广泛而深远的悼念。借助一系列简介、采访、悼文以及相关原始文献，文章系统地回顾了C. David Allis传奇的一生，梳理了C. David Allis影响深远的贡献。其中包含4项原创研究贡献：发现第一个组蛋白乙酰基转移酶；揭示组蛋白H3第10位丝氨酸磷酸化 (H3S10ph) 与细胞分裂的关系；参与发现第一个组蛋白位点特异性的甲基转移酶；推动组蛋白变体和“致癌组蛋白(oncohistone)”领域的进展。一项理论贡献：提出“组蛋白密码 (histone code)”的假说。两项对表观遗传学界的贡献：作为发起人之一，参与对组蛋白修饰酶的系统命名；作为主编之一，编撰pigenetics 专著。

The sudden death of C. David Allis, a trailblazer in the fields of epigenetics and chromatin biology, immediately triggered widespread and profound mourning in the biomedical community. Through a collection of briefs, interviews, obituaries, and relevant original academic papers, the author comprehensively reviews his legendary life and highlights his contributions. The four farreaching research contributions are discovering the first histone acetyltransferase, revealing the correlation between histone H3 serine 10 phosphorylation (H3S10ph) and cell division, co-identifying the first histone site-specific methyltransferase with collaborators, and advancing the study of histone variants and “oncohistone”. A theoretical contribution is the hypothesis of “histone code”. Two general
contributions to epigenetic community are: as one of the advocators, participated in the systematic nomenclature for histone modifying enzymes; as one of the chief editors, compiled the masterpiece “Epigenetics”.