Bonnie Bassler

Bonnie Lynn Bassler (born 1962) is an American molecular biologist who has researched chemical communication between bacteria known as quorum sensing, and contributed to the idea that disruption of chemical signaling can be used as an antimicrobial therapy. She is the Squibb Professor in Molecular Biology and chair of the Department of Molecular Biology at Princeton University. She is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and her research focuses on bacterial quorum sensing, which is the cell-to-cell communication in bacteria.
She has received numerous awards for her research, including the Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences (2009), the Richard Lounsbery Award (2011), and the L’Oreal-UNESCO award (2012), a MacArthur Fellowship (2002), and the Pearl Meister Greengard Prize (2016). She is a former president of the American Society for Microbiology, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a former six-year member of National Science Board.
Early life and education.
Born in Chicago and raised in Danville, California, Bassler was intellectually curious from a young age, as she enjoyed solving various logic puzzles. Bassler began her career in science "as a veterinarian’s assistant at the Miami Zoo and later at a local dog and cat clinic." Bassler received a Bachelor of Science in biochemistry from the University of California, Davis. Despite her entry as a major in veterinary sciences, she preferred to focus on genetics and biochemistry. She stated that these subjects allowed her the "gateway to solving biological puzzles." She began to work for UC Davis biochemistry and molecular medicine professor Frederic Troy. Troy's research focuses included bacterial carbohydrates and the relationship between the Epstein-Barr virus and cancer. At the time, the cancer project appealed to Bassler more than the research on bacteria, but Troy assigned her to the bacteria research project. Within this project, Bassler characterized an enzyme in E. coli which cleaved sugars from various membrane glycoproteins. Eventually, Bassler admired working with prokaryotes as she stated that "they're the perfect creatures to work on."
Following her undergraduate research, Bassler received a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Johns Hopkins University. She achieved key insights into the mechanism by which bacteria communicate, known as quorum sensing. Her postdoctoral research was conducted at Agouron Institute in genetics for four years. Here, she studied glow-in-the-dark bacteria that cause the oceanic light show. She used her previous knowledge and research to demonstrate that when there were enough cohorts to make effort, bacteria gave off light. In 1994, Bassler joined the Princeton faculty. She is currently the chair of the department of molecular biology and the Squibb Professor in molecular biology. Following her postdoctoral research, the MacArthur Foundation awarded Bassler its fellowship in 2002, which recognized her for her immense contributions to the bacterial lexicon.
Research.
Bassler has been conducting research for the past two decades. During her postdoctoral research, Bassler continued working with bacteria. Bassler was originally experimenting with genetic manipulation of bioluminescent genes in bacteria. She began doing research with "V. harveyi" bacteria and discovered that this bacteria had multiple molecules for quorum sensing. She found that these bacteria use quorum sensing to turn on and off a large number of genes in response to communications from other bacteria. These communications and responses allow bacteria of the same species and of different species to cooperate in a similar manner to multi-cellular organisms. She furthered this research by attempting to figure out how bacteria communicate. A series of experiments led to the discovery that boron binding is used as a co-factor. This element is found in abundance in the oceans where "V. harveyi" is found.
Currently, she leads a lab in Princeton University that researches in Quorum Sensing: the process of cell-cell communication in Bacteria. Bassler's discoveries are described as "opening new vistas in basic science, but also of practical significance." As antibiotic resistance in human pathogens continues to be a significant challenge in research, Bassler's research contributed new and exciting strategies for treating bacterial disease. Bassler has received numerous awards, but most recently she was awarded the Gruber Genetics Prize. Within Bassler's lab, they focus on intra- and inter-species communication, self versus non-self recognition, information transferring, and population level cooperation. She focuses on five related research topics: How Bacteria Distinguish Self from Other: Ligand-Receptor Interactions, Dynamics: Small RNA Regulation of Quorum Sensing, Biofilms Under Flow and the Public Goods Dilemma, Manipulation of Quorum Sensing on Demand, and Micriblome Quorum Sensing and Inter-Kingdom Communication.
Apart from her research on Bacteria, Bassler has also made major contributions to the science community. Some of her contributions include authoring a section in iBiology's New Online Textbook. This textbook is a free source for students in higher education and self-learners. Bassler's section is a narrative on Quorum Sensing and How Bacteria Communicate. She hopes to make sure that everyone gets opportunities to learn and participate in science.