Title: How Bacteria Talk To Each Other

ABOUT PROFESSOR BASSLER: Dr. Bonnie Bassler received her Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry from the University of California, Davis and her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Johns Hopkins University. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, she has received special recognition from the World Cultural Council and was named L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Awards Laureate for North America in 2012 and one of the American Society for Microbiology’s USA Science and Engineering Festival’s Nifty Fifty Speakers in 2010. This year, she and Everett Peter Greenberg of the University of Washington were awarded the Shaw Prize in Life Science and Medicine for their discovery of quorum sensing, a process whereby bacteria communicate with each other.

Abstract: Bacteria communicate with one another using small chemical molecules that they release into the environment. These molecules travel from cell to cell and the bacteria have receptors on their surfaces that allow them to detect and respond to the build up of the molecules. This process of cell-to-cell communication in bacteria is called “Quorum Sensing” and it allows bacteria to synchronize behavior on a population-wide scale. Bacterial behaviors controlled by quorum sensing are usually ones that are unproductive when undertaken by an individual bacterium acting alone but become effective when undertaken in unison by the group. For example, quorum sensing controls virulence, biofilm formation, and the exchange of DNA. Thus, quorum sensing is a mechanism that allows bacteria to function as multi-cellular organisms. Current biomedical research is focused on the development of novel anti-bacterial therapies aimed at interfering with quorum sensing. Such therapies could be used to control bacterial pathogenicity.

2015-10-01 @11:30 AM

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