Bonnie Bassler Quotes
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Think about all kinds of infectious diseases, like mumps or measles or chicken pox. When a virgin population encountered those pathogens, it ravaged the population, and now they're childhood diseases, and eventually they won't even be that. That's our relationship with bacteria, going through time.
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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.
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What's great about bacteria is you have a surprise every day waiting for you because they're so fast, they grow overnight.
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I think being open-minded about what Nature is trying to tell you is the key to being creative and successful.
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You live in intimate association with bacteria, and you couldn't survive without them.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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By weight, you are more human than bacteria, because your cells are bigger, but by numbers, it's not even close.
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I am lucky because I get to work with the smartest, most creative, and most devoted group of students and postdoctoral fellows imaginable.
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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.
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My job is to teach someone something they never knew, but it should not be like you're in a prisoner-of-war camp. I'm supposed to be teaching you but also entertaining you. You're giving me an hour of your time. It should be lively. We're on a hunt, it's a mystery, and it's amazing.
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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.