Bonnie Lynn Bassler (born 1962)[2] 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. She has researched cell-to-cell chemical communication in bacteria and discovered key insights into the mechanism by which bacteria communicate, known as quorum sensing. She has contributed to the idea that disruption of chemical signaling can be used as an antimicrobial therapy.[3][4][5]
Bassler was born in Chicago and raised in Danville, California.[17] 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."[18]
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. 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."[17] Bassler attended Johns Hopkins University and received a PhD in biochemistry in 1990.[19]
Her postdoctoral research was conducted at the Agouron Institute in La Jolla, California where she worked with Michael R. Silverman from 1990 to 1994.[17]
Silverman was the first to discover quorum sensing, by studying the marine bacterium Vibrio fischeri. 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.[3]
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.[3][4][20]
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.[21] Her lab at Princeton University researches quorum sensing, the process of cell-cell communication in bacteria.[22][23]
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."[24] Bassler's research has contributed new and exciting strategies for treating bacterial disease.[25]
In 2002, the MacArthur Foundation awarded Bassler a fellowship in recognition of her contributions to the bacterial lexicon.[10][26]
Research
Vibrio harveyi
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.[17]
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.[22]
Bassler, Bonnie L (December 1999). "How bacteria talk to each other: regulation of gene expression by quorum sensing". Current Opinion in Microbiology. 2 (6): 582–587. doi:10.1016/s1369-5274(99)00025-9. ISSN1369-5274. PMID10607620.
Bassler, Bonnie L.; Wright, Miriam; Showalter, Richard E.; Silverman, Michael R. (August 1993). "Intercellular signalling in Vibrio harveyi: sequence and function of genes regulating expression of luminescence". Molecular Microbiology. 9 (4): 773–786. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2958.1993.tb01737.x. ISSN0950-382X. PMID8231809. S2CID36357210.
"Quorum sensing: Bacteria talks", Bonnie Bassler, TED2014
