Quotes by Bonnie Bassler

About Bonnie Bassler:

Bonnie Lynn Bassler is an American molecular biologist. She has been a professor at Princeton University since 1994. In 2002, she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

We've all been sick; we're all afraid of infection. I think the easiest application to help people understand what quorum sensing is and why it's important to study is to tell them that if we could make the bacteria either deaf or mute, we could crea...

Bonnie Bassler

We mostly don't get sick. Most often, bacteria are keeping us well.

Bonnie Bassler

Think about multicellularity on this Earth. Every living thing originally came from bacteria. So, who do you think made up the rules for how to perform collective behaviors? It had to be the bacteria.

Bonnie Bassler

You can find bacteria everywhere. They're invisible to us. I've never seen a bacterium, except under a microscope. They're so small, we don't see them, but they are everywhere.

Bonnie Bassler

In my lab, we are always thinking about how cells, bacterial cells, can talk to each other and then organize themselves into enormous groups that function in unison.

Bonnie Bassler

As a kid, I loved doing puzzles, solving riddles, and reading mystery books. I also loved animals and always had pets.

Bonnie Bassler

I think the easiest application to help people understand what quorum sensing is and why it's important to study is to tell them that if we could make the bacteria either deaf or mute, we could create new antibiotics.

Bonnie Bassler

Bacteria are single-celled organisms. Bacteria are the model organisms for everything that we know in higher organisms. There are 10 times more bacterial cells in you or on you than human cells.

Bonnie Bassler

By weight, you are more human than bacteria, because your cells are bigger, but by numbers, it's not even close.

Bonnie Bassler

I realized that lab research was the perfect path for me. It allowed me to spend every day figuring out mysteries/puzzles that have to do with what make us alive. What could be a bigger mystery or puzzle?

Bonnie Bassler

It's incorrect to think of bacteria as these asocial, single cells. They are individual cells, but they act in communities, exactly the way people do.

Bonnie Bassler

So, okay, I'm not a genius. Vincent Van Gogh and Albert Einstein were geniuses.

Bonnie Bassler

My bacteria glow in the dark - no human being doesn't like that.

Bonnie Bassler

If I didn't teach the aerobics class, I wouldn't come, and I need to stay in shape. I've got a whole wardrobe of sleeveless dresses and strapless gowns, not to mention the short skirts.

Bonnie Bassler

Bacteria mineralized the rocks; they deposited the iron. They made the geology we see.

Bonnie Bassler

You live in intimate association with bacteria, and you couldn't survive without them.

Bonnie Bassler

I am lucky because I get to work with the smartest, most creative, and most devoted group of students and postdoctoral fellows imaginable.

Bonnie Bassler

Author Bio

  • NameBonnie Bassler
  • DescriptionAmerican molecular biologist
  • Born1962
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionMolecular Biologist
  • AwardsMacArthur Fellows Program; L'Oréal-UNESCO Awards For Women In Science