One of Princeton’s most accomplished molecular biologists has been honored with a major award by a foundation connected to the Spanish aristocracy for her work studying quorum sensing, which could potentially provide an alternative to traditional antibiotics which have seen increased resistance in recent years.
The Princess of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research named Bonnie Bassler, chair of the University's molecular biology department, a 2023 award recipient in June. Next week, Bassler will be joined by Jeffrey Gordon and Everett Greenberg in Oviedo, Spain for the official award ceremony.
Each recipient of the award receives a Joan Miró sculpture, a diploma, an insignia, and a cash prize of 50,000 euros.
Bassler has been recognized numerous times for her lab’s research. Recently, she was awarded with the 2023 Canada Gairdner International Award as well as the 2022 Microbiology Society Prize Medal. She has authored over 130 scientific publications and has been cited over 60,000 times.
Bassler was not available for comment at the time of publication.
Bassler’s research centers around quorum sensing, a chemical communication system that allows bacteria to share information and react accordingly through the secretion of signal molecules called auto-inducers. Her work suggests that bacteria can communicate not only within but between species through their chemical signaling systems.
Members of Bassler’s lab team spoke to their engagement with the work and its potential impacts.
Grace Beggs, a postdoctoral researcher in the lab, focuses on protein structures in this communication network to understand how they pass on chemical signals to guide the behavior of bacteria. She also studies how bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria, can detect bacterial signaling molecules.
Both her work with quorum sensing and bacteriophages have medical implications, such as manipulating quorum sensing or phages to kill bacteria. Beggs notes that this research is especially important as antibiotic resistance in pathogens has risen rapidly in recent years.
“Quorum sensing as well as phages kind of provide alternative means for developing therapeutics,” Beggs explained. “We can find ... new therapeutics that specifically target quorum sensing so that the bacteria are no longer able to infect hosts — or potentially [use] these phages that listen in on bacteria quorum sensing and [develop] therapeutics for these phages [to] kill the infecting bacteria.”
Justin Silpe GS ’20, another postdoctoral researcher in the lab researching phages, further acknowledges the potential of quorum sensing in medical treatment.
“The connection is clear that human pathogens rely on quorum sensing to get people sick. If you can affect or manipulate quorum sensing, the thought in the lab is that it may be an attractive alternative to antibiotics,” Silpe explained.
Silpe noted that quorum sensing has had a growing impact in the field’s understanding of human pathogens and their mechanisms of action.
“Now, people are finding more and more important roles for bacteria in human health. We know that the bacteria aren’t generally by themselves doing their quorum sensing, but they are doing it in the context of a human host,” Silpe said. “And so, I think the really exciting research that [Professor Bassler] has is related to human cells — or cells that are totally not bacteria — cross signaling with the bacteria.”
Silpe has been a longtime member of the lab, first as a graduate student in the lab from 2014–2020 and later returning to the lab in 2022 as a postdoc. Having had Bassler as a mentor in a variety of roles, Silpe describes her presence and support as reaffirming.
“The basic discoveries are hard to explain to your family and friends in terms of what you’re doing, but when you go into lab and you talk to her, it’s really validating and there’s a deeper satisfaction. What you feel, she feels 100 times stronger,” Silpe said.
Owen Yu is a News contributor for the ‘Prince.’
Please send corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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