Molecular biology professor Bonnie Bassler was chosen as one of this year's 43 Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigators to receive financial support for their biological research from a pool of more than 300 nominees across the nation
"What the Howard Hughes is going to do for my group is tremendous," Bassler said. "I believe it's going to change the way I and my group do science . . . The idea is that I can go back to being what I was, which is a scientist."
Molecular biology department chair Lynn Enquist said the honor reflects what the department has known for a long time.
"Bonnie is very bright, very energetic and an extremely good citizen in the department," Enquist said. "She's a remarkable scientist. She has a gift to pick interesting problems and a style of solving those problems that is direct, and she is able to stimulate students to discover how to be a scientist and help her solve these problems."
Bassler's laboratory at Princeton, where she has worked for 10 years, concentrates on quorum sensing, in which bacteria "converse" and organize based on the concentration levels of secreted molecules.
"Bacteria make and release these tiny molecules — they're like hormones — and they tell each other who's there," Bassler explained. "If a lot of bacteria are there, the molecule can build up."
If bacteria detect that a large number of other bacteria is concentrated in one area, she said, they can form "enormous multicellular organisms."
Bassler received her undergraduate degree in biochemistry from UC Davis and her Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University. Her postdoctoral work involved intercellular communication in bacteria, the field she continues to pursue today.
Bassler was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, popularly known as a "genius award," for her research on quorum sensing in 2002.
But despite its acceptance the past few years, the concept of intercellular communication among bacteria has not always been accepted in the scientific arena.
A decade ago, Bassler said, "almost no one believed quorum sensing was anything more than an anomaly."
Broach explained that biologists viewed bacteria as insular organisms, existing completely separately from one another. This idea, Bassler added, was strongly supported by the biological community because it made a large distinction between humans, who communicate, and bacteria, which — it was then thought — did not.
But Princeton's molecular biology department had faith in Bassler's research.
"There was a time when nobody thought this stuff was interesting, and this department did. So, I appreciated that then and I appreciate that now," Bassler said.
Broach stressed the importance of Bassler's research to current biological thinking.
"What Bonnie's work has made clear is that in fact there's an enormous amount of communication not only within species, but between species as well," Broach said, adding that her research has augmented "our appreciation of how living organisms are interconnected."
"She's working in an area of fundamental research — really understanding the very basics of how cells communicate," Enquist said. "The ramifications extend across biology. That's one of the reasons she was recognized."
Bassler identified two main implications of her research: the possibility of creating powerful antibiotics that operate by halting cell-to-cell communication and the discovery of fundamental information about how the human body works and how diseases occur.
In addition to running her lab of graduate students and researchers, Bassler is a professor of both graduate and undergraduate studies.
"I love teaching," she said. "What I hope happens when someone takes a class from me is they understand how enthusiastic I am about science."
Bassler also relishes her relationship with the researchers in her lab.
"The most rewarding part is working with the people that are in my group," she said. "They become these remarkable, unbelievably great scientists where I am terrified of them by the end."
Bassler added, "They're doing this evolution themselves, but I get to be a part of it and I get to have some influence in it."
Bassler described her recent selection as an HHMI investigator and her MacArthur fellowship as a credit to the scientists working in her lab.
"They're honors I never even knew to dream of," Bassler said.
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