Words matter. These are the best Bonnie Bassler Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
So, okay, I’m not a genius. Vincent Van Gogh and Albert Einstein were geniuses.
I think being open-minded about what Nature is trying to tell you is the key to being creative and successful.
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.
All these bacteria that coat our skin and live in our intestines, they fend off bad bacteria. They protect us. And you can’t even digest your food without the bacteria that are in your gut. They have enzymes and proteins that allow you to metabolize foods you eat.
When antibiotics first came out, nobody could have imagined we’d have the resistance problem we face today. We didn’t give bacteria credit for being able to change and adapt so fast.
When antibiotics became industrially produced following World War II, our quality of life and our longevity improved enormously. No one thought bacteria were going to become resistant.
By weight, you are more human than bacteria, because your cells are bigger, but by numbers, it’s not even close.
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.
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?
My bacteria glow in the dark – no human being doesn’t like that.
As a kid, I loved doing puzzles, solving riddles, and reading mystery books. I also loved animals and always had pets.
It’s a manic-depressive life. You run in here, you open your incubator, your experiment makes no sense, you think, ‘I hate this job.’ Then ten minutes later you think, ‘Well, now, maybe I’ll try this or I’ll try that.’ You do it because you know there will be an ‘a-ha!’ day.
The goal of scientists is you hope that the thing you’re working on is bigger than the thing you’re pipetting into that tube at that moment.
Everybody, as soon as they do a good experiment, their first thought in this lab is, ‘That can’t be right. I must have screwed it up. What did I do wrong?’ And that’s the best kind of scientist because they’re filled with this self-doubt. And if I’m going to be honest, that’s who I am. And it’s what drives me.
I called up and said, ‘Dad, I won a MacArthur.’ My father goes: ‘I always thought your sister would win that,’ and I said, ‘Dad, just say congratulations and keep your private thoughts private.’ At that point he laughed, then burst into tears, and it was obvious that he was so happy and proud.
I want to make a drug. I want the science to be more than imaginary, where I think, ‘We’re learning these fundamental principles, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.’ I think we are doing that, but I want to do something really practical. I want to actually, in my lifetime, help people.
Bacteria live in unbelievable mixtures of hundreds or thousands of species. Like on your teeth. There are 600 species of bacteria on your teeth every morning.
If a bacterium is trying to infect you, it won’t secrete alone, because your immune system will block it. Bacteria will hide until they can all act together and make an impact.
Bacteria mineralized the rocks; they deposited the iron. They made the geology we see.
I am lucky because I get to work with the smartest, most creative, and most devoted group of students and postdoctoral fellows imaginable.
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.
I went to UC Davis because I wanted to be a vet. It’s a great profession if it’s right for you, but it’s memorizing the bones and the muscles, and I am terrible at stuff like that. Also, there’s a lot of blood and gore involved.
Most bacteria aren’t bad. We breathe and eat and ingest gobs of bacteria every single moment of our lives. Our food is covered in bacteria. And you’re breathing in bacteria all the time, and you mostly don’t get sick.
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 create new antibiotics.
We mostly don’t get sick. Most often, bacteria are keeping us well.
