Professor Bassler is just brilliant!! She is also so humble; At the end she gave so much credit to her team, but she has initiated so much of these studies and her drive is what has kept this going!! Go Bonnie!!
I wish more professors would understand how to give a proper explanation, I have found my current professor completely out of touch and rambling on for hours, stumbling through her explanation and pointing at a power point with the intent to make a student feel dumb, then you watch Bonnie Bassler videos and become infected with her passion and everything not only makes sense but also makes you want to learn more. Thank you, Mrs. Basler, for sharing this with us. #legend
*Lecturing on the topic of Quorum Sensing Today* Each time I view this video, I feel like the class is stepping through a door into a new understanding of life, the universe, and everything... #QuorumSensing
Dr. Bonnie Bassler is a monumentally important human whose mind has greatly served and enlightened the rest of us. Thank you Professor Bassler. (I'm a narrowly educated aero-engineer). What a world the bios are in! Cool.
That was fantastic. What an amazing talk. I had no idea and learned many new things about bacteria and how useful they are. Thank you for the upload. More TED talks is always a great thing.
This is really important for people to understand--the medicines that save our children's lives will likely come from this kind of knowledge. TED rocks, so much!
pretendig im not lonley is the closest thing i have to not being lonely. its not crazy it surviving because lonliness wont kill you, it will just show u urself over and over- god is relief.
Great presentation! I really enjoyed the last part when she pointed out the demographic she works with at Princeton. It is clear she shares her knowledge, by actually spending time teaching. Commendable that she shares credit for the discoveries made by her group and that she takes time to communicate in and out of the group. No wonder she ( and they) knew what it was that they were looking at.
She seems to be an honest and intelligent person without stagefright and even though a scientist, a person with love. Tell you what, her research students are lucky as much as they are brilliant.
Wow, I'm speechless!! What a wonderful talk, and indeed, the ramifications of these findings are just amazing! Let's just hope it's not used towards another weapon.
Also, your comment reminded me of a critical phenomenon in history. The primordial earth used to be very rich in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, and life at that stage thrived in it. But suddenly a mutation led to new bacteria and algae that photosynthesize and create oxygen. This massive influx of this new element oxygen led to massive extinctions and eventually allowed for us to develop. We are doing something similar with pollutants, but on a much smaller and less lethal scale.
Q1: It can, by changing the type of receptors, but we can change the kind of molecules we are using against them. Bacterias seems to be very dependent on these receptor types, and removing it would never be an option. Q2: I think these kinds of antibiotics should be used after the bacteria attack, as an counter attack. When the body knows where they are. I speculate if it is possible to trick aids into thinking that it have the right number of bacterias to start attacking at an early stage.
I honestly kind of like some of her ideas for the intra-species antibiotic possibilities. However, I'm also worried that she's mentioned they're hypothesizing about doing this with the inter-species hormones as well. Wouldn't that cause problems with beneficial bacteria as well as the dangerous ones? And she also mentions beefing up conversation with beneficial bacteria - would this not result in also beefing up conversation in bacteria, since it would HAVE to be interspecies hormones?
InvalidationX145, I'm not sure if I understood your comment correctly but what I think she's trying to say is that they are making receptors to block the hormones of intra and inter species. It would make sense that the inter-species hormones would then go and block receptors of other bacteria, however for the anti-quroum drugs to work I would guess that the bacteria would need BOTH the intraspecies and interspecies antagonists. Also, the same would go with beefing up conversations.
We didn't get to learn enough about how bacteria actually count these molecules to what exactly her treatment in mice does. I imagine the bacteria have many sensors along their cell membrane and basically get a, Yes (there is a molecule in this sensor) or No (there is no molecule in this sensor) response from each sensor. Once it receives a threshold level of simultaneous Yes's, it activates a behavior. As opposed to somehow having a memory of how frequently is counts one of these molecules.
I agree Mrmoc7, I do not deny the importance of emotions and spirituality, it is what gives our existence value and growth. These are just as important as the logic I am supporting. I merely meant to say that many times emotions/spirituality can cloud our judgment negatively at times and we should keep that in mind. Some variable symptoms of unchecked human emotions/spirituality are Marxism, Fascism, Religious fundamentalism, Terrorism, Gambling, Drug abuse, extreme environmentalists, etc.
She says bacteria get resistant to antibiotics because we select for them. This is true, but don't we also select for bacteria resistant to quorum sensing inhibitors? When cells that have inhibited communication are less fit, then there can and will emerge a mutation in the receptor leading to reduced binding of the inhibitor. Which is exactly the same principle like resistance to antibiotics.
Autoinducer-2 (AI-2), is one of the quorum sensing molecules in the talk. It's a furanosyl borate diester produced by multiple Vibrios. IUPAC name: (3aS,6S,6aR)-2,2,6,6a-tetrahydroxy-3a-methyltetrahydrofuro[3,2-d][1,3,2]dioxaborolan-2-uide)
Well, that was pretty cool, but I do have one big question about the one that blocks the "general signal" receptor. If every bacteria has this "general" receptor, and you block it, how did the mouse live? Like she said before, there are bacteria which are necessary for us to live, and if we employ this block to all bacteria, wouldn't it affect the good bacteria as well? I might be missing something, but the idea that all of our bacteria being rendered useless is kinda scary.
If by overly specialized you mean specialized for a set of circumstances that will at some point become obsolete, I agree with you entirely. Bacteria is going to be here a long time after us, and that's okay.
That does matter because if it is a much higher number how does that then compare to how much bacteria. It's kind of important to get the numbers right if your comparing them.
Excellent vid! With all the work on nanotechnology it's sometimes easy to forget what great nanotechnology is ALREADY available, and how it can benefit us to learn more about working with what's already there. (although I suppose bacteria are better classified as "micro" tech instead of "nano"). ....dealing with bacteria on "their terms," great idea. A bacteria "naturalist." The Jane Goodall of bacteria ;)
brilliant, but one question, what happens to the multiplying bacteria, they're still growing, all this does is stop them from activation, but they'll still eat resources within our body?
The easiest method for preventing pathological bacterial infections is to prevent their attachment to human cells. Medical doctors are responsible for a great number of antibiotic resistant bacteria through the overuse and irresponsible use of antibiotics and thus are partially responsible for hospital acquired infections responsible for the countless deaths every year within the united states.
Newportlights, what is the purpose of science, if not to benefit humanity? Merely understanding is only scratching the surface of the universe, engineering and technology is the next natural stage in the evolution of the universe.
It is research into a series of chemicals that can cut off the communication between bacteria, potentially restricting them from becoming virulent. Current antibiotics merely kill bacteria, every kind of bacteria, indiscriminately, and ARE getting into the enviroment and being used carelessly (because they are so effective in treating disease!). This offers a safer, more effecient, targetted treatment.
I am perplexed. What are bacteria to gain from the inter-species communication? Just imagine that all of the animals in the forest (wolfs and rabbits) are whistling the same tune. Those animals that would not whistle would be much better at catching the prey and avoid being hunted and would survive.
Great talk! But how can we talk about "bacterial species" if they reproduce asexually? Wouldn't the genomes drift apart very quickly? I much prefer the new intro-music as well.
Awesome lesson. You should do this for LYME DISEASE, as this has now become a global epidemic. The CDC has reported that now there are over 300,000 new cases/year and this now passes HIV+/AIDS cases well beyond. It is said the real world numbers are more like 1-3 million new cases. Borrelia burgdorferi, one of the bacteria responsible for Lyme Disease, produces outer surface protein OSP-A (in ticks) & OSP-C (in humans), which might be used in quorum sensing & which might be able to be exploited. New studies have also implicated this bacteria in causing Alzheimer's disease, MS, Fibromyalgia, & Morgellon's disease. So your work on this Borrelia genus can affect millions & millions of people and save the economy a few billion.
2010, 2020, 2030, 2040 - we will see very different decades as technological progress itself accelerates in an exponential fashion. Discoveries build on past discoveries, it gains traction in the 20th century and takes off in the 21st century, we even have robots doing a lot of research lab work much more efficiently and accurately than human hands.
Fascinating, but I can't help but notice the much larger issue here. If we consider the important role that bacteria play in life and evolution, then we need to seriously re-think the impact of devising ways to kill these natural population balancing mechanisms. While I believe the study of bacteria will lead to exciting discoveries, applying the science to medicine, which serves to protect our own massively disproportionate species, is probably contrary to the goals of bacteria.
Maybe it makes more sense to make lonely bacteria think that there is a lot of another bacterias and its time to attack using fake chemicals. A small amount of bacteria will not cause a lot of damage.
Wow thats amazing. Its sort of sad that bacteria has a universal language, but we humans can't do that.. Anyway that new form of antibiotics seems like it has real potential, although it is depressing that the second we learn about something as wonderful as a universal language, the first thing we do with it is learn how to kill off the bacteria we don't like. Good talk though
I'm sure they will do sufficient testing with this stuff before trying it on humans. But I can see what you're saying.... It will be interesting to see what comes out of this.
