Of An­cient Curses, Mi­crobes, and the ASM

It is our plea­sure to be­gin an an­nual tra­di­tion of host­ing a few re­flec­tions from the in­com­ing pres­i­dent of the ASM.

by Bon­nie L. Bassler

On July 1, as I start my term as ASM Pres­i­dent, I am re­minded of three omi­nous curses of du­bi­ous an­cient ori­gin:

1. May you live in in­ter­est­ing times.
2. May you come to the at­ten­tion of those in au­thor­ity.
3. May you find what you are seek­ing.

May you live in in­ter­est­ing times:  Clearly, these times qual­ify. Mi­crobes will be at the heart of so­lu­tions to our most press­ing prob­lems: the en­vi­ron­ment, food, en­ergy, and health. The BP oil spill be­gan on day ‑79 of my term. Mi­crobes are com­ing to the res­cue and ASM ex­per­tise is on the scene (see the ear­lier post in this blog). Let us hope that lessons have been learned. In his in­au­gu­ra­tion ad­dress, Pres­i­dent Obama promised to "re­store sci­ence to its right­ful place." It may be hap­pen­ing. The Na­tional Acad­emy of Science's Board on Life Sci­ences re­cently re­leased their re­port: A New Bi­ol­ogy for the Twenty First Cen­tury. The US Cab­i­net Sec­re­taries of En­ergy and Agri­cul­ture re­quested a se­ries of work­shops to dis­cuss how to im­ple­ment the new bi­ol­ogy. A first work­shop, fo­cused on food and fuel, was held in DC last month and I was in­vited to par­tic­i­pate (day ‑27 of my term). Work­shop mem­bers were asked to de­velop sci­en­tific chal­lenges for the decade to be pro­posed to Con­gress for fund­ing. To­gether with sev­eral other ASM mem­bers in at­ten­dance, I strongly ad­vo­cated the un­der­stand­ing and ap­pro­pri­ate use of mi­crobes to syn­the­size new fu­els, clean up the en­vi­ron­ment, op­ti­mize crop pro­duc­tion, etc. Our ral­ly­ing sound bite: Mi­crobes: the world's only un­lim­ited re­new­able re­source!

May you come to the at­ten­tion of those in au­thor­ity:  On May 20, with quite some fan­fare, Sci­ence pub­lished a man­u­script: Cre­ation of a Bac­te­r­ial Cell Con­trolled by a Chem­i­cally Syn­the­sized Genome. On that same day (day ‑42 of my term) the ASM Pub­lic and Sci­en­tific Ad­vi­sory Board (PSAB) re­leased a po­si­tion state­ment of­fer­ing a bal­anced per­spec­tive on the man­u­script, the sta­tus of the field of syn­thetic bi­ol­ogy, and its reg­u­la­tion. A num­ber of ASM mem­bers, in­clud­ing my­self, gave ex­pert opin­ions in news­pa­pers, on the ra­dio, and on TV. Pres­i­dent Obama re­quested his Pres­i­den­tial Com­mis­sion for the Study of Bioeth­i­cal Is­sues to un­der­take a study of the im­pli­ca­tions of this sci­en­tific re­search and other ad­vances that may lie ahead in this field. I will tes­tify at the first Com­mis­sion hear­ing on July 8 (day +8 of my term—at last we're into pos­i­tive num­bers!). I feel well equipped to rep­re­sent us. Last year I was the or­ga­nizer and chair of the Na­tional Acad­e­mies of Sci­ences Keck Fu­tures Con­fer­ence on Syn­thetic Bi­ol­ogy. I con­tinue to learn about new de­vel­op­ments in the field, and I am ex­pertly ad­vised by our PSAB staff, our new PSAB Chair Roberto Kolter, and other knowl­edge­able ASM mem­bers. My spe­cific role is to com­pare and con­trast the en­gi­neer­ing per­spec­tive with that of the bi­o­log­i­cal and ge­netic sci­ences, and to ex­plain how ap­proaches rep­re­sented by syn­thetic bi­ol­ogy dif­fer from other ap­proaches to bi­o­log­i­cal ma­nip­u­la­tion. I will also ad­dress what has been ac­com­plished and what is likely to be ac­com­plished in this field and what I think are im­por­tant ob­sta­cles to the ad­vance­ment of syn­thetic bi­ol­ogy.

May you find what you are seek­ing:  Over this past year (day ‑365 to day 0) as Pres­i­dent Elect, I got to know the So­ci­ety in­side and out. I learned what re­mark­able ac­com­plish­ments 40,000 vol­un­teers can achieve. I saw our mem­bers do­nate huge blocks of time for the good of our dis­ci­pline and the health of our planet. I be­came fully con­vinced that col­lec­tively we have the po­ten­tial and the ex­per­tise to make the world health­ier, to en­able a sus­tain­able re­la­tion­ship with our en­vi­ron­ment, and to en­sure the promise and promi­nence of sci­ence and tech­nol­ogy in our cul­ture. It has been a mag­i­cal and eye-open­ing year. I am be­gin­ning to un­der­stand the vast breadth and depth of this or­ga­ni­za­tion and the po­si­tion of its mem­bers in lead­ing the na­tion and the world in all in mat­ters touched by mi­crobes.

There's noth­ing like a few omi­nous curses to get the blood flow­ing. I am ea­gerly look­ing for­ward to this com­ing year with the hope that I can make sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to the ASM and to our com­mu­nity at large. I will do my best to fur­ther en­hance our rep­u­ta­tion in pub­lic pol­icy, ed­u­ca­tion, out­reach, and sci­en­tific ad­vance­ment. Now at day +1 and count­ing, I look for­ward to meet­ing you!

 

Bon­nie Bassler is the Squibb Pro­fes­sor of Mol­e­c­u­lar Bi­ol­ogy at Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity and a Howard Hughes Med­ical In­sti­tute In­ves­ti­ga­tor. She has been a mem­ber of the ASM for over 25 years. She is also a fel­low of the Amer­i­can Acad­emy of Mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy and a mem­ber of both the Na­tional Acad­emy of Sci­ences and the Amer­i­can Acad­emy of Arts and Sci­ences. Her lab stud­ies quo­rum sens­ing as a mech­a­nism of chem­i­cal com­mu­ni­ca­tion among bac­te­ria.