This collaboration, in particular the 1973 publication of "Construction of biologically functional bacterial plasmids in vitro" by Cohen, Chang, Boyer and Helling, is considered a landmark in the development of methods to combine and transplant genes. Not only were different plasmids from E. coli successfully joined and inserted back into E. coli cells, but those cells replicated and carried forward the new genetic information. Subsequent experiments that transferred Staphylococcus plasmid genes into E. coli demonstrated that genes could be transplanted between species. These discoveries signaled the birth of genetic engineering, and earned Cohen a number of significant awards, beginning with the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research in 1980 for "his imaginative and persevering studies of bacterial plasmids, for discovering new opportunities for manipulating and investigating the genetics of cells, and for establishing the biological promise of recombinant DNA methodology."