Dr. Bissell is a world-renowned leader in the area of the role of extracellular matrix (ECM) and microenvironment in regulation of tissue-specific function with special emphasis in breast cancer, where she has changed some established paradigms. She earned an A.B. with honors in chemistry from Harvard/Radcliffe College and a Ph.D. in bacterial genetics from Harvard University in 1969. She was a Milton Fellow at Harvard and an American Cancer Society Fellow in the Department of Molecular Biology at U.C. Berkeley. She joined the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 1972. Dr. Bissell became a Senior Scientist in 1977, the Director of Cell & Molecular Biology in 1988, and was appointed Director of all of Life Sciences in 1992.

Dr. Bissell has authored more than 280 publications and sits on the editorial board of many scientific journals, most recently Science magazine and Journal of Cell Science. She also sits on a number of national and international scientific and government boards. She has received numerous awards and citations and has given more than 80 ‘named and distinguished' lectures. She was a Fogarty Fellow in 1984, a Guggenheim fellow in 1992 and was elected an AAAS fellow in 1994. She received the 1996 Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award and medal, the highest honor of the US Department of Energy. In 1997, she was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies and served as President of the American Society for Cell Biology. In 1998, she received the Mellon Award from the University of Pittsburgh and was the 1999 recipient of the Eli Lilly/Clowes Award of the American Association for Cancer Research. In 2001, Dr. Bissell received both an honorary doctorate from the Pierre & Marie Curie University in Paris and the first “Innovator Award” of the US Army breast cancer program. In 2002, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was the President of the International Society of Differentiation. Upon stepping down as the Life Science's Division Director, she was named Distinguished Scientist (one of seven, the only woman and the only life scientist to achieve this status) and Senior Advisor to the Laboratory Director on Biology. In 2003, she received the Brinker Award from the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. In 2004, she was among the 13 recipients of the first Discovery Health Channel Medical Honor and received another honorary doctorate from the University of Copenhagen. In 2005, she became the first OBER/DOE Distinguished Scientist Fellow in Life Sciences and received a $1.25 million award for 5 years. In 2006, Dr. Bissell received the H. Lee Moffit Cancer Center, Ted Couch Lectureship and Award. In 2007, she received the Pezcoller Foundation–AACR International Award for Cancer Research and was elected to the American Philosophical Society.