Richard Lathe

Richard Lathe is a molecular biologist and has held professorships at the University of Strasbourg, Edinburgh University, 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 [1] based in Strasbourg. Lathe is also the founder of Pieta Research, a biotechnology consultancy in Edinburgh, current academic appointments are with Edinburgh and Pushchino.

Lathe is the primary inventor of the vaccine that eradicated rabies in France. Extension of this work included the development of vaccines against tumors including cervical and breast cancer.[2]

The most highly cited paper regards a tool for isolating coding sequences, published in 1985 in the Journal of Molecular Biology. [3]

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.[4]

In Autism, Brain, and Environment (2006, ISBN , [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.

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