Bassler was born in Chicago and raised in
Danville, California. Bassler entered the
University of California, Davis as a major in veterinary sciences, but focused on
genetics and
biochemistry and received a Bachelor of Science in biochemistry. Bassler worked for UC Davis biochemistry and molecular medicine professor Frederic Troy, who assigned her to a bacteria research project. Within this project, Bassler characterized an enzyme in E. coli which cleaved sugars from various membrane glycoproteins. Bassler has stated that
prokaryotes are "the perfect creatures to work on." Her postdoctoral research was conducted at the
Agouron Institute in
La Jolla, California where she worked with
Michael R. Silverman from 1990 to 1994. Silverman was the first to discover
quorum sensing, by studying the marine bacterium
Vibrio fischeri. The glow-in-the-dark bacteria communicate chemically about their numbers and only give off light when a cohort is large enough to create an effective light source. Bassler determined further that bacteria are "multilingual" and use multiple chemical signal molecules to communicate with each other. In 1994, Bassler joined the Princeton faculty. She is currently the chair of the department of molecular biology and the Squibb Professor in molecular biology. Her lab at Princeton University researches quorum sensing, the process of cell-cell communication in bacteria. Bassler's exploration of the ways in which bacteria communicate and behave collectively can be seen as contributing to a paradigm shift in how scientists view the microbial world. Bassler's discoveries are said to "open new vistas in basic science, but are also of practical significance." Bassler's research has contributed new and exciting strategies for treating bacterial disease. In 2002, the MacArthur Foundation awarded Bassler a fellowship in recognition of her contributions to the bacterial lexicon. == Research ==