Cracking the Code of Bacterial Communication

TEDChris writes "Microbiologist Bonnie Bassler explains her discovery of 'quorum sensing' — the amazing ability of bacteria to communicate with each other and coordinate attack strategies (video). By cracking the communication code, she has opened up potential for a new class of drugs tackling microbial diseases. The talk got a massive standing ovation at this year's TED and has just been posted. To quote one commenter: 'This is by far the most inspiring, amazing, and far-reaching talk I've seen in a very long time.'"

Comments

Where have I heard that before

[gringer]

"Quorum Sensing"... I remember that phrase. It sounds strangely like something we considered putting into our signal transduction paper back in 2004 (published 2006). It was Lisa, not I, who did the reading on quorum sensing, so I can't claim to be well-read in the subject.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&cmd=search&term=cashin+goldsack+hall