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A former Roanoke man is building a biological brake that stops allergic reactions that irritate tens of millions of Americans.

Some medical leaders think Christopher Kepley may be on to something.

In April, the molecular immunologist won the Henning Lowenstein Research Award from Danish pharmaceutical company ALK-Abello. He went to London to collect the award and a prize worth about $12,000.

The prize, named for an allergy pioneer, is given annually to a scientist under the age of 40 for excellence in allergy research.

Kepley, 39, of Quinton, is the fifth person to win and the first from the United States. He works at Virginia Commonwealth University as an assistant professor in rheumatology, allergy and immunology, and devotes 90 percent of his time to research.

Kepley grew up in Roanoke and attended Woodrow Wilson Middle School and Patrick Henry High School, where he played sports including football. He is the son of Dick and Gail Kepley of Roanoke. Kepley received his doctorate from VCU in 1995 and spent seven years at the University of New Mexico before joining the VCU faculty.

In Kepley's laboratory, the goal is to turn off allergic reactions. "We can do it in the test tube and we can do it in humanized mice," said Kepley, who works with a partner at the University of California at Los Angeles, Dr. Andrew Saxon.

A genetically engineered molecule that Saxon and Kepley developed "acts as a brake on the release of the allergy-triggering histamine," according to VCU.

"This work represents an entirely new approach to treating allergic diseases," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, who directs the federal National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, when key findings appeared in the journal Nature Medicine in 2002. The National Institutes of Health, among others, is funding the research and has provided him and Saxon about $1 million, Kepley said.

The year before the magazine article, Kepley received the first award from the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology for outstanding research published by a developing researcher in the academy's publication, the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

Kepley said his team's next step is a collaboration with a pharmaceutical company to mass-produce the biological brake involved in their experimental approach to allergy prevention; human studies are still a ways off. He cautioned that fewer than one in 20 compounds studied by researchers end up on pharmacy shelves.

"That said, with great hopes I would look at between five or six years before this would be available for patients," he said.

He has a personal incentive to succeed: Two of his three children suffer from allergies.

After returning from London with his award, Kepley said he received a congratulatory e-mail from Eugene Trani, president of VCU. However, the award "doesn't matter a hill of beans unless the people sitting on the grant-funding agencies or the grant committees are impressed," Kepley said.

He and his wife, Liz, plan to use the prize money toward a new kitchen.