Richard Lathe

Richard Lathe is a molecular biologist who has held professorships at the University of Strasbourg, the University of Edinburgh, and the State University of Pushchino. He was assistant director at the biotech company Transgene in Strasbourg, a principal scientist at ABRO, Edinburgh, and Co-Director of the Biotechnology College ESBS based in Strasbourg. Lathe is also the founder of Pieta Research, a biotechnology consultancy in Edinburgh, current academic appointments are with the University of Edinburgh[1] and the State University of Pushchino.

Early Work

Lathe studied Molecular Biology at Edinburgh under Bill Hayes and Ken Murray, followed by doctoral studies at Brussels under Rene Thomas. He then moved to Cambridge (under Mike Ashburner), to Heidelberg (Ekke Bautz) before joining the newly founded Biotech company Transgene SA under Jean-Pierre Lecocq, Pierre Chambon, and Philippe Kourilsky.

Vaccines

Lathe is the primary inventor of the vaccine that eradicated rabies in France.[2]; other members of the team included Marie-Paule Kieny. Extension of this work included the development of vaccines against virus-induced tumors.[3][4] The European rabies vaccination campaigns proved tremendously successful and constituted a paradigm for wildlife vaccination programs. France was declared free of rabies in 2002, but success in North America has been less dramatic owing to the prevalence of several species capable of transmitting rabies [5]

Gene technology

The most highly cited paper regards a tool for isolating coding sequences, published in 1985 in the Journal of Molecular Biology.

Hippocampal function

A review in the Journal of Endocrinology entitled 'Hormones and the Hippocampus' argues that external and internal biochemical sensing have been crucial for the evolution of the mammalian brain. Although the hippocampus is likely to play a role in internal sensing, other brain regions have been implicated, and a far wider role of the hippocampus in consciousness, episodic memory, and emotional feelings has been discussed[6]

Autism, Brain, and Environment

In Autism, Brain, and Environment (2006, ISBN 1-84310-438-5, ), Lathe proposes that autism is largely a disorder of the limbic brain, balancing evidence that environmental factors may trigger autism with a recognition of genetic vulnerability. In his book, he analyzes biomedical evidence pertaining to the genetics, endocrinology, immunology, toxicology, virology, and neuroscience essential for understanding the causes of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). Lathe contends that the recent increase in reported ASD cases has resulted from increased exposures to environmental toxics, combined with predisposition to genetic vulnerability. While nothing in his book contradicts research implicating genetic vulnerability as an underlying cause of ASDs, Lathe instead uses evidence showing autism is more prevalent in urban than rural areas to bolster his contention that pollution is a likely culprit as well. Lathe argues that most children on the autism spectrum have additional physiological problems, and that these, rather than being separate from the psychiatric aspects of ASDs, can produce and worsen the condition. "I aim to show how genetics and environmental factors might come together," he says. Lathe's book also describes a cycle of disease that begins with exposure to certain brain damaging toxins, in particular affecting the limbic system, which in turn can lead to autistic symptoms and collateral physical ailments, such as autistic enterocolitis, leading to further brain damage. With sixty percent of families with a child on the autism spectrum using casein and/or gluten-free diets, Lathe believes that parents are correct in thinking that biomedical intervention can help their children, and that some of these interventions may effectively address environmental causes of ASDs.

Lunar theory of life's origins on Earth

Lathe's research has led him to develop a theory that without the Moon, there would be no life on Earth. When life began, Earth orbited much more closely to the Moon than it does now, causing massive tides every few hours, which in turn caused rapid cycling of salinity levels on coastlines and may have driven the evolution of early DNA. Lathe uses polymerase chain reaction (PCR), which amplifies DNA replication in the lab, as an example of the mechanisms that facilitate DNA replication, In the laboratory, PCR synthesis is achieved by cycling DNA between two extreme temperatures in the presence of certain enzymes. At lower temperatures, about 50 °C, single strands of DNA act as templates for building complementary strands. At higher temperatures, about 100 °C, the double strands break apart, doubling the number of molecules. The synthesis of DNA is started again by lowering the temperature, and so forth. Through this process, one DNA molecule can be converted into a trillion identical copies in just 40 cycles. Saline cycles triggered by rapid tidal activity would have amplified molecules such as DNA in a process similar to PCR, through alternating high and low salinity – a process dubbed tidal chain reaction (TCR)[7] – says Lathe, "The tidal force is absolutely important, because it provides the energy for association and dissociation" of polymers.[8]

A contrasting viewpoint is that deep-sea hydrothermal vents, among other scenarios, may have led to the emergence of life (abiogenesis). In addition, the fast early tides invoked may not have been quite so rapid,[9] and it is possible that only 2-3% of the Earth's crust may have been exposed above the sea until late in terrestrial evolution [4]; although mechanistically sound, the tidal chain reaction theory remains speculative.[10]

Brain disease

The prion theory has been widely questioned,[11] and the prion (PrP) protein is now recognized to be an RNA-binding protein.[12] Darlix and Lathe propose that retroelements constitute the replicative component of the transmissible spongiform encephalopathies.[13]

Lathe has also argued that infection may play a role in Alzheimer disease, and has worked with Rudy Tanzi and Rob Moir at Harvard to develop the Antimicrobial Protection Theory of Alzheimer Disease[14] Building on earlier recommendations of an expert group [15] and increasing evidence that there is a causal link between infection and Alzheimer's disease.[16]

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References
  1. "Professor Richard Lathe. Honorary Fellow, Division of Infection and Pathway Medicine". The University of Edinburgh.
  2. "patents.google.com". Google patents. 25 April 1984.
  3. Lathe, Richard (30 April 1987). "Tumour prevention and rejection with recombinant vaccinia". Nature. 326 (6116): 878–880. doi:10.1038/326878a0. PMID 3033512.
  4. Lathe, Richard (1 December 1990). "Vaccination against tumor cells expressing breast cancer epithelial tumor antigen". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 87 (23): 9498–9502. doi:10.1073/pnas.87.23.9498. PMC 55194. PMID 2251291.
  5. Lafon, M. (2016). Reiss, Carol Shoshkes (ed.). Neurotropic Viral Infections (Vol. 1): Neurotropic RNA Viruses (2nd edn). https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319331881: springer. pp. 85–113. ISBN 978-3-319-33189-8.CS1 maint: location (link)
  6. Behrendt, Ralf-Peter (2013). "Conscious experience and episodic memory: hippocampus at the crossroads". Frontiers in Psychology. 4: 304 – via PMC.
  7. Lathe, Richard (January 2005). "Tidal chain reaction and the origin of replicating biopolymers". International Journal of Astrobiology. 4: 19–31 – via Cambridge University Press.
  8. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/923a/fc758a965307c14878dde294e12b1d70dfdf.pdf
  9. Varga, P; Rybicki, K.R.; Denis, C (2005). "Comment on the paper 'Fast tidal cycling and the origin of life'". Icarus. 180: 274–276 – via Elsevier Science Direct.
  10. Flament, N; Coltice, Nicolas; Rey, Patrice F. (2008). "A case for late-Archaean continental emergence from thermal evolution models and hypsometry". Earth and Planetary Science Letters. 275: 326–336 – via Elsevier Science Direct.
  11. Bruce, M. E.; Dickinson, A. G. (1987). "Biological evidence that scrapie agent has an independent genome". Journal of General Virology. 68: 79–89 – via Microbiology Society.
  12. Silva, Jerson L.; Lima, Luís Maurício T.R.; Foguel, Debora; Cordeiro, Yraima (2008). "Intriguing nucleic-acid-binding features of mammalian prion protein". Trends in Biochemical Sciences. 33 (3): 132–140 – via Elsevier Science Direct.
  13. Lathe, R.; Darlix, J. L. (2020). "Prion protein PrP nucleic acid binding and mobilization implicates retroelements as the replicative component of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy". Archives of Virology. 165: 535–556 – via Springer.
  14. Lathe, Richard; Moir, Robert D.; Tanzi, Rudolph E. (9 October 2018). "The antimicrobial protection hypothesis of Alzheimer's disease". Alzheimer's Association.
  15. Itzhaki, Ruth F.; Lathe, Richard (12 April 2016). "Microbes and Alzheimer's Disease". Journal of Alzheimer's Disease. 51 (4): 979–984 – via IOS press.
  16. Itzhaki, Ruth F; Lathe, Richard (1 January 2018). "Herpes Viruses and Senile Dementia: First Population Evidence for a Causal Link". Journal of Alzheimer's Disease. 64 (2): 363–366 – via IOS Press.
  • Pieta-Research.org - 'Pieta Research A biotechnology consultancy based in Edinburgh UK: Specialist areas Molecular biology, neuroscience, physiology'
  • NewScientist.com - 'No Moon, no life on Earth, suggests theory', Anil Ananthaswamy, New Scientist (18 March 2004)
  • NewScientist.com - 'Toxic metal clue to autism', Richard Lathe and Michael Le Page, New Scientist (18 June 2003)
  • - 'Autism and pollution: the vital link', Juliet Rix, The Times (2 May 2006)
  • - 'Making sense of autism', Francesca Happé, Nature (9 Aug 2006)
  • - 'Fast tidal cycling and the origin of life', Richard Lathe, Icarus (2003)
  • - 'Without the moon, would there be life on earth', Bruce Dorminey, Scientific American (21 April 2009)
  • - 'Autism, Brain, and Environment', Richard Lathe, Jessica Kingsley Publishers (2006)
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