Bassler has been conducting research for the past two decades. During her postdoctoral research, Bassler continued working with bacteria. Bassler was originally experimenting with genetic manipulation of bioluminescent genes in bacteria. She began doing research with "V. harveyi" bacteria and discovered that this bacteria had multiple molecules for quorum sensing. She found that these bacteria use quorum sensing to turn on and off a large number of genes in response to communications from other bacteria. These communications and responses allow bacteria of the same species and of different species to cooperate in a similar manner to multi-cellular organisms. She furthered this research by attempting to figure out how bacteria communicate. A series of experiments led to the discovery that boron binding is used as a co-factor. This element is found in abundance in the oceans where "V. harveyi" is found.