Bonnie Lynn Bassler (born 1962) is an American

molecular biologist Molecular biology is the branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecule, molecular basis of biological activity in and between Cell (biology), cells, including biomolecule, biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interact ...

; the Squibb Professor in Molecular Biology and chair of the Department of Molecular Biology at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

; and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. She has researched cell-to-cell chemical communication in

bacteria Bacteria (; singular: bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one Cell (biology), biological cell. They constitute a large domain (biology), domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometr ...

and discovered key insights into the mechanism by which

communicate, known as

quorum sensing In biology, quorum sensing or quorum signalling (QS) is the ability to detect and respond to cell population density by gene regulation. As one example, QS enables bacteria to restrict the expression of specific genes to the high cell densities at ...

. She has contributed to the idea that disruption of chemical signaling can be used as an antimicrobial therapy. Bassler has received numerous awards for her research, including the

Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize The Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize is an annual award bestowed by the since 1952 for investigations in medicine. It carries a prize money of 120,000 Euro. The prize awarding ceremony is traditionally held on March 14, the birthday of N ...

(2021), the

Pearl Meister Greengard Prize The Pearl Meister Greengard Prize is an award for women scientists in biology given annually by the Rockefeller University. The Prize was founded by Nobel laureate Paul Greengard and his wife Ursula von Rydingsvard in honor of Greengard's moth ...

(2016), the L'Oreal-UNESCO award (2012), the

Richard Lounsbery Award The Richard Lounsbery Award is given to American and French scientists, 45 years or younger, in recognition of "extraordinary scientific achievement in biology and medicine." The Award alternates between French and American scientists, and is awa ...

(2011), the Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences (2009), and a

MacArthur Fellowship The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to between 20 and 30 indi ...

(2002). She is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences (as of 2006), a

Foreign Member of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathematic ...

(as of 2012), a former president of the

American Society for Microbiology The American Society for Microbiology (ASM), originally the Society of American Bacteriologists, is a professional organization for scientists who study viruses, bacteria, fungi, algae, and protozoa as well as other aspects of microbiology. It wa ...

(2011) and served on the

National Science Board The National Science Board (NSB) of the United States establishes the policies of the National Science Foundation (NSF) within the framework of applicable national policies set forth by the President and the Congress. The NSB also serves as an ind ...

with a term expiring May 10, 2016. She was an editor of the '' Annual Review of Genetics'' from 2012–2017.

Early life and education

Bassler was born in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

and raised in

Danville, California The Town of Danville is located in the San Ramon Valley in Contra Costa County, California. It is one of the incorporated municipalities in California that use "town" in their names instead of "city". The population was 43,582 at the 2020 census ...

. She began her career in science at 13 "as a veterinarian's assistant at the Miami Zoo and later at a local dog and cat clinic." Bassler entered the

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The inst ...

as a major in veterinary sciences, but focused on

genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar wor ...

and

biochemistry Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...

and received a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...

in biochemistry. Bassler worked for UC Davis biochemistry and molecular medicine professor Frederic Troy, who assigned her to a bacteria research project. Within this project, Bassler characterized an enzyme in E. coli which cleaved sugars from various membrane glycoproteins. Bassler has stated that prokaryotes are "the perfect creatures to work on." Bassler attended

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consi ...

and received a PhD in biochemistry in 1990. Her postdoctoral research was conducted at the Agouron Institute in La Jolla, California where she worked with Michael R. Silverman from 1990–1994. Silverman was the first to discover

, by studying the marine bacterium ''

Vibrio fischeri ''Aliivibrio fischeri'' (also called ''Vibrio fischeri'') is a Gram-negative, rod-shaped bacterium found globally in marine environments. This species has bioluminescent properties, and is found predominantly in symbiosis with various marine anim ...

''. The glow-in-the-dark bacteria communicate chemically about their numbers and only give off light when a cohort is large enough to create an effective light source. Bassler determined further that bacteria are "multilingual" and use multiple chemical signal molecules to communicate with each other. Since then, Bassler has also shown that bacteria use quorum sensing to differentiate self and other, a trait previously thought to be limited to more highly evolved organisms. Bassler has shown that viruses and host cells (such as human cells) as well as bacteria, use quorum sensing, and that the virulence of pathogenic bacteria is in part a result of quorum sensing. Bassler has developed anti-quorum-sensing strategies that, in animal models, halt infection from bacterial pathogens of global significance. 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. Her lab at Princeton University researches quorum sensing, the process of cell-cell communication in bacteria. Bassler's exploration of the ways in which bacteria communicate and behave collectively can be seen as contributing to a paradigm shift in how scientists view the microbial world. Bassler's discoveries are said to "open new vistas in basic science, but are also of practical significance." Bassler's research has contributed new and exciting strategies for treating bacterial disease. In 2002, the MacArthur Foundation awarded Bassler a fellowship in recognition of her contributions to the bacterial lexicon.

Research

During her postdoctoral research, Bassler experimented with genetic manipulation of bioluminescent genes in '' 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 extended this research in series of experiments leading to the discovery that boron binding is used as a co-factor in communication. Boron is found in abundance in the oceans where ''V. harveyi'' is found. Bassler's lab focuses on intra- and inter-species communication, self versus non-self recognition, information transferring, and population level cooperation. Research topics include: 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 microbiome quorum sensing and inter-kingdom communication.

Awards and honors

* 2002

* 2004 Elected member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science * 2006 National Academy of Sciences * 2007 Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

* 2008 Special Recognition from the

World Cultural Council The World Cultural Council is an international organization whose goals are to promote cultural values, goodwill and philanthropy among individuals. The organization founded in 1981 and based in Mexico, has held a yearly award ceremony since 198 ...

* 2009 Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences * 2010 USA Science and Engineering Festival's Nifty Fifty Speakers, nominated by

* 2010–2016

, nominated by President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...

* 2011

* 2011 L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Awards Laureate for North America * 2010–2011 President of the

* 2012 Member in the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

* 2014

EMD Millipore Alice C. Evans Award * 2015 Shaw Prize in Life Science and Medicine * 2016 The FASEB Excellence in Science Award * 2016

* 2016 Max Planck Research Award * 2016 Elected member of the

National Academy of Medicine The National Academy of Medicine (NAM), formerly called the Institute of Medicine (IoM) until 2015, is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Medicine is a part of the National Academies of Sciences, Eng ...

* 2018 Dickson Prize * 2018 Ernst Schering Prize * 2020 Genetics Society of America Medal * 2020

Gruber Prize in Genetics The Gruber Prize in Genetics, established in 2001, is one of three international awards worth US$500,000 made by the Gruber Foundation, a non-profit organization based at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. The Genetics Prize honors leadi ...

* 2021

* 2022

Wolf Prize in Chemistry The Wolf Prize in Chemistry is awarded annually by the Wolf Foundation in Israel. It is one of the six Wolf Prizes established by the Foundation and awarded since 1978; the others are in Agriculture, Mathematics, Medicine, Physics and Arts ...

.Wolf Prize in Chemistry 2022
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Selected works

* * * * * * * * * * * *

References

External links

A Biologist's Listening Guide to Bacteria
-

All Things Considered ''All Things Considered'' (''ATC'') is the flagship news program on the American network National Public Radio (NPR). It was the first news program on NPR, premiering on May 3, 1971. It is broadcast live on NPR affiliated stations in the United ...

interview
Nova ''Science Now'' Profile: Bonnie Bassler
* ** TED Talk
How bacteria "talk"
(TED2009)
Bonnie Bassler Seminar: Cell-Cell CommunicationBonnie Bassler Online Talk: Tiny Conspiracies
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bassler, Bonnie 1962 births Living people American women biochemists Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Howard Hughes Medical Investigators Johns Hopkins University alumni MacArthur Fellows Richard-Lounsbery Award laureates Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Foreign Members of the Royal Society American molecular biologists Scientists from Chicago Princeton University faculty University of California, Davis alumni Women molecular biologists L'Oréal-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science laureates 21st-century American women scientists Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Members of the American Philosophical Society Members of the National Academy of Medicine Fellows of the American Academy of Microbiology American women academics Annual Reviews (publisher) editors