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- Princeton geneticist and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator Bonnie Bassler helped lead a revolution in the way scientists think about bacteria. Her lab's work on quorum sensing—essentially how bacteria "talk" with one another and act as groups—has spawned a flurry of medical research and may one day bring us a new class of drugs.
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Bonnie Lynn Bassler (born 1962) is an American molecular biologist; the Squibb Professor in Molecular Biology and chair of the Department of Molecular Biology at Princeton University; and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator.
Bassler and her students helped turn a harmless, bioluminescent bacterium into a star of scientific research—a model organism holding lessons about how all bacteria communicate.
Bonnie Bassler discovered that bacteria "talk" to each other, using a chemical language that lets them coordinate defense and mount attacks. The find has stunning implications for medicine, industry -- and our understanding of ourselves.
Oct 24, 2013 · She elucidated the chemical language that bacteria use to communicate through a process called quorum sensing that allows bacteria to count their numbers, determine when they’ve reached a critical mass, and then change their behavior in unison to result in virulence or even bioluminescence.
- Ushma S. Neill
- 10.1172/JCI75027
- 2014
- J Clin Invest. 2014 Apr 1; 124(4): 1421-1422.
Bonnie L. Bassler is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and the Squibb Professor of Molecular Biology at Princeton University.
When Bonnie Bassler talks about bacterial conversations, electrical current seems to surge through her body. Arms gesticulate and fingers point. Words percolate. She zaps her audience with the conviction that she is explaining the coolest thing ever.
Sep 12, 2006 · Bonnie Bassler's discovery about how bacteria talk to one another has led to a whole new field of research -- and maybe someday drugs that would be effective against all bacteria.
