Who is Bonnie Bassler ? (L'Oréal-UNESCO Awards 2012)

Bonnie Bassler
L'Oréal-UNESCO Laureate For North America

Bonnie Bassler has devoted herself to studying the revolutionary notion that bacteria are not simply tiny individual organisms working on their own for better (helping us digest food, for example) or for worse (causing disease). In fact, as she discovered, they are ineffective on their own and must work as coordinated 'armies' to be able to be successful at both keeping us healthy and making us sick. It would be impossible for groups of bacteria to act in unison, however, if they did not communicate with each other. Bassler has shown that bacteria 'talk' using chemicals as their words. These startling discoveries may someday lead to the development of new antibiotics that interfere with bacterial conversations as well as many other applications, such as infection-resistant surgical implants.

• Category

  Science & Technology

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