Running notes from the TED conference in Long Beach, CA.; first posted at www.stltoday.com, my newspaper’s website.
Molecular biologist Bonnie Bassler wowed the TED conference today with her lively description of her research that proved bacteria talk with each other.
The annual gathering draws some of the world’s top scientists, scholars, technologists and business leaders who absorb 50-plus talks over four days. TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) organizers pride themselves on assembling an eclectic roster of carefully screened speakers who are working on “big ideas.” This is not a crowd that is easily impressed.
As Bassler concluded her talk, the crowd came to its feet, cheering. “Wow, scientists never get standing ovations,” she said, laughing.
Why the buzz?
Bassler/Photo by Asa Mathat/TED
Bassler, a researcher at Princeton University, detailed a communication process that bacteria use to organize and act, which she calls “quorum sensing.” In 2002, Bassler discovered a molecule that is key to the process in a type of marine bacteria.
The bacteria, called Vibrio Fischer, makes light — but only when it is tightly packed. Bassler discovered that the molecule puts out a chemical signal and once the bacteria has grown to a certain cell size, the molecules collectively begin to glow. She described this as a chemical language, or a form of voting, and said different bacteria use it to carry out hundreds of behaviors.
She zeroed in on virulence. Bad bacteria that enter a human body are individually too small to have an effect. But, using quorum sensing, once they have reached a certain size they release their pathogens at the same time, making a person ill.
Bassler described — in simple terms — how her team has found that each form of bacteria speaks a slightly different language, but all are related. Thus, bacteria communicates not only with “siblings” in the same species, but also with other types of bacteria. With these languages, different types of bacteria can vote on “decisions” about which bacteria should act in a certain situation.
Bassler’s team has developed molecules that “jam” the quorum sensing of certain types of bacteria — rendering them effectively powerless, but not killing them. She believes this holds the key to a new generation of antibiotics to replace current drugs that kill bacteria and, as a result, have led to drug resistant mutations.
“We think this can get us around antibiotic resistance.”
You can read more about Bassler’s work at her lab’s website, and follow the conference’s photo, Twitter and blog feeds here.
