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We've all been sick; we're all afraid of infection. I think the easiest application to help people understand what quorum sensing is and why it's important to study is to tell them that if we could make the bacteria either deaf or mute, we could create new antibiotics.

I would say it's important for scientists to speak out when they can and when they can be listened to.

In my lab, we are always thinking about how cells, bacterial cells, can talk to each other and then organize themselves into enormous groups that function in unison.

When antibiotics first came out, nobody could have imagined we'd have the resistance problem we face today. We didn't give bacteria credit for being able to change and adapt so fast.

I think it's important for scientists to speak in their own voices and not just be mediated by journalists or others speaking for them.

The problem of chemotherapy of bacterial infections could be solved neither by the experimental medical research worker nor by the chemist alone, but only by the two together working in very close cooperation over many years.

I think that the discoveries of antibiotics and vaccines have contributed to the improvement of the quality of life, making it possible to prevent contagious diseases.

Time and time again, truly basic studies of simple experimental organisms have proved directly relevant to human biology and human disease. An investment in such basic studies is an effective investment indeed.

In the development of antibiotics, the soil microbiological population has contributed more than its share. It is to the soil that the microbiologists came in search of new antibacterial agents.