Molecular biologist Bonnie Bassler, the Andrew K. Golden University Professor at Princeton and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, has been named the 2026 recipient of the Royal Society’s Copley Medal, its oldest and most prestigious prize.

Bassler’s Copley Medal recognizes her foundational research in quorum sensing — the chemical signaling by which bacteria communicate with each other and band together to act collectively — and for her “dogma-overturning idea that interfering with bacterial communication could form the basis of completely novel anti-bacterials,” according to the award citation. 

“Her discoveries are paving the way for therapies to combat disease-causing bacteria,” the Society noted in its award announcement. 

“I am delighted that the 2026 Copley Medal has been awarded to Professor Bonnie Bassler,” said Sir Paul Nurse, president of the Royal Society, in the announcement. “This well-deserved award recognizes her invaluable contribution to science, as well as the extraordinary creativity with which she approaches research.” 

The Copley Medal is the world’s oldest scientific prize, according to the Royal Society. Previous award winners include Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Dorothy Hodgkin and Charles Darwin.

“I am deeply honored, especially given the long history and central importance of the Copley prize to scientific progress,” Bassler said, adding that “it is both humbling and inspiring to have one’s name on the same list as the world’s most celebrated scientists.” 

“More personally, the prize is a marvelous validation of my team’s creativity and their fearlessness in pursuing big questions,” she said. “Importantly, I believe this choice for the prize highlights the worthiness of basic, curiosity-driven science, as such research has invariably led to applications vital to human well-being.”

Bassler has received numerous honors for her breakthrough research in quorum sensing, including the U.S. National Medal of Science, the nation’s highest scientific honor. She was awarded the Wolf Prize in Chemistry in 2022, the Gruber Prize in Genetics in 2020, the Shaw Prize in Life Science and Medicine in 2015, the Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences in 2009, and a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” in 2002. 

Her many international awards include the Canada Gairdner International Award, the Princess of Asturias Award from the Spanish Crown and the Max Planck Research Award.

Bassler joined the Princeton faculty in 1994. She was chair of the Department of Molecular Biology from 2013 to 2025 and directed the molecular biology graduate program from 2003 to 2008. She was director of Princeton’s Council on Science and Technology from 2008 to 2013. 

She was named a University Professor, Princeton’s highest honor for faculty, in September 2025. Prior to her University Professorship, Bassler was the Squibb Professor in Molecular Biology beginning in 2007. She has been a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator since 2005. 

Bassler received her bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from the University of California-Davis and her doctorate from Johns Hopkins University. 

She is one of 27 medal and award honorees announced today by the Royal Society recognizing “outstanding contributions to scientific discovery, public engagement and research culture.”

Other Princeton faculty members who have previously received Royal Society honors include Copley Medal winner Andrew Wiles, in mathematics, Centenary Prize recipient David MacMillan, in chemistry, Sylvester Medal recipient Peter Sarnak, in mathematics, Benjamin Franklin Medal recipient Elizabeth Gould, in neuroscience, and husband and wife Royal Medal in Biology recipients Peter and B. Rosemary Grant.