15 Facts About Bonnie Bassler

Bonnie Lynn Bassler was born on 1962 and 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.

Bonnie Bassler has researched cell-to-cell chemical communication in bacteria and discovered key insights into the mechanism by which bacteria communicate, known as quorum sensing.

Bonnie Bassler has contributed to the idea that disruption of chemical signaling can be used as an antimicrobial therapy.

Bonnie Bassler is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Foreign Member of the Royal Society, a former president of the American Society for Microbiology and served on the National Science Board with a term expiring May 10,2016.

Bonnie Bassler was born in Chicago and raised in Danville, California.

Bonnie Bassler entered the University of California, Davis as a major in veterinary sciences, but focused on genetics and biochemistry and received a Bachelor of Science in biochemistry.

Bonnie Bassler worked for UC Davis biochemistry and molecular medicine professor Frederic Troy, who assigned her to a bacteria research project.

Bonnie Bassler determined further that bacteria are "multilingual" and use multiple chemical signal molecules to communicate with each other.

Since then, Bonnie Bassler has shown that bacteria use quorum sensing to differentiate self and other, a trait previously thought to be limited to more highly evolved organisms.

Bonnie Bassler has shown that viruses and host cells as well as bacteria, use quorum sensing, and that the virulence of pathogenic bacteria is in part a result of quorum sensing.

Bonnie Bassler has developed anti-quorum-sensing strategies that, in animal models, halt infection from bacterial pathogens of global significance.

Bonnie Bassler is currently the chair of the department of molecular biology and the Squibb Professor in molecular biology.

Bonnie Bassler found that these bacteria use quorum sensing to turn on and off a large number of genes in response to communications from other bacteria.

Bonnie Bassler extended this research in series of experiments leading to the discovery that boron binding is used as a co-factor in communication.

Bonnie Bassler's lab focuses on intra- and inter-species communication, self versus non-self recognition, information transferring, and population level cooperation.