Bonnie Bassler, Howard Hughes medical institute investigator and Squibb professor of molecular biology at Princeton University, will present the spring 2011 Dean's Lecture at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, May 17, in the Junker Auditorium on the Penn State Hershey Medical Center and Penn State College of Medicine campus.
Bassler's lecture, titled "How Bacteria Talk to Each Other," will draw upon her groundbreaking research on the molecular mechanisms bacteria use for intercellular communication.
A member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Bassler is an internationally renowned scientist whose research is paving the way for the development of novel therapies for combating bacteria by disrupting quorum sensing-mediated communication. She has received numerous awards for her innovative research, including a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 2002 and the National Academies’ Richard Lounsbery Award in 2011. Bassler was elected to the American Academy of Microbiology in 2002 and made a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2004.
Bassler is the president of the American Society for Microbiology, an editor for Molecular Microbiology, mBio, and chief editor of Annual Reviews of Genetics. Among other duties, she serves on the National Academies Board on Life Sciences, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Science Education Committee, and Discovery Communications’ Science Channel Scientific Advisory Board. Bassler is a passionate advocate for diversity in the sciences, and she is actively involved in and committed to educating lay people in science.