Bonnie Bassler
Bonnie Bassler
Bonnie Lynn Bassler is an American molecular biologist. She has been a professor at Princeton University since 1994. In 2002, she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
CountryUnited States of America
Bonnie Bassler quotes about
bacteria great surprise
What's great about bacteria is you have a surprise every day waiting for you because they're so fast, they grow overnight.
huge sports
I was a huge athlete as a kid. I was on every sports team.
came collective originally perform
Think about multicellularity on this Earth. Every living thing originally came from bacteria. So, who do you think made up the rules for how to perform collective behaviors? It had to be the bacteria.
adapt bacteria came change face imagined nobody problem resistance
When antibiotics first came out, nobody could have imagined we'd have the resistance problem we face today. We didn't give bacteria credit for being able to change and adapt so fast.
afraid bacteria deaf easiest either people study understand
We've all been sick; we're all afraid of infection. I think the easiest application to help people understand what quorum sensing is and why it's important to study is to tell them that if we could make the bacteria either deaf or mute, we could create new antibiotics.
bacteria easiest either people study understand
I think the easiest application to help people understand what quorum sensing is and why it's important to study is to tell them that if we could make the bacteria either deaf or mute, we could create new antibiotics.
alone bacteria block hide immune system trying until
If a bacterium is trying to infect you, it won't secrete alone, because your immune system will block it. Bacteria will hide until they can all act together and make an impact.
allow bacteria bad coat digest food foods protect proteins skin
All these bacteria that coat our skin and live in our intestines, they fend off bad bacteria. They protect us. And you can't even digest your food without the bacteria that are in your gut. They have enzymes and proteins that allow you to metabolize foods you eat.
enormous groups organize themselves
In my lab, we are always thinking about how cells, bacterial cells, can talk to each other and then organize themselves into enormous groups that function in unison.
eventually infectious kinds measles population relationship time
Think about all kinds of infectious diseases, like mumps or measles or chicken pox. When a virgin population encountered those pathogens, it ravaged the population, and now they're childhood diseases, and eventually they won't even be that. That's our relationship with bacteria, going through time.
mystery solving
As a kid, I loved doing puzzles, solving riddles, and reading mystery books. I also loved animals and always had pets.
devoted fellows group lucky students work
I am lucky because I get to work with the smartest, most creative, and most devoted group of students and postdoctoral fellows imaginable.
allowed bigger figuring lab mystery realized spend
I realized that lab research was the perfect path for me. It allowed me to spend every day figuring out mysteries/puzzles that have to do with what make us alive. What could be a bigger mystery or puzzle?
human model organisms
Bacteria are single-celled organisms. Bacteria are the model organisms for everything that we know in higher organisms. There are 10 times more bacterial cells in you or on you than human cells.