Bassler | Scientist | Nova | High energy | actress

If she weren't teaching, though, she wouldn't show up at all. So teaching is her version of willpower.

This morning is the first day back at class after a school holiday. She's shouting as loudly as she did at the NIH, and the intent is similar. She's shouting, trying to goose some slow people into movement. "Don't stop now!" she hollers. She kicks, crouches, and lunges, calling people by name. "You're late! Are you taking another break? Come on! Do it!"

After class, the sweaty students rush up to a visitor to offer their assessments of Bassler, scientist extraordinaire. They know the drill - PBS came a few weeks ago to film an episode of Nova. Unique individual. Caring. Compassionate. Kind and giving. Great communicator. Down to earth. Not at all pretentious. Don't know how she does everything.

Her students and postdoc fellows say the same sort of things about her at the lab. Generous. Inspiring. Brilliant. Sympathetic. Supportive. High energy. True to herself.

They also say she's neurotic. She says so herself. "I'm a really insecure person," she says. "Every time I write a paper, I think I'll have no more ideas."

Bassler says, "My whole life is about guilt.  A monologue is always going on in my head: Could I have been better, stronger, faster?"

The other consensus is that she's an actress, a performer - that she loves the spotlight. She must, to be willing to take her message about bacterial communication on the road the way she has. Of course, she presents the lab's research at big conferences where scientists from all over the world gather, but she also lectures for conclave after conclave of students and faculty, each group made up of a handful of researchers of one single, solitary biology department.