At the Forefront of a New Scientific Frontier—Interview with Dr. Kathy Latham

With a Ph.D. in molecular biology from Vanderbilt University but a waning interest in laboratory work, Dr. Kathy Latham eventually left the bench and found her way to Ambion’s Marketing Department. Eight years later, she now serves as Director of RNAi Products. “It’s been a good fit,” she says. “I use my scientific background daily, conversing with scientists within the company’s R&D department and with external researchers, as I address how best to support their research efforts. I’m constantly asking, 'What do life science researchers need to be more successful and how can we help them obtain answers more quickly?' If Ambion and Applied Biosystems do a good job of bringing worthwhile products to the market, all scientists benefit.”

Love the Science, Not the Routine
From the time she was in junior high school, Kathy has been intrigued to learn how things work and to understand the biological world around her. And she has never wavered from this interest. She advises younger scientists to be honest with themselves about their commitment to science, “If you love science and the process, then stick with it. Even if you are put off by the routine of bench work, there are other opportunities.”

Cutting-Edge Science
Kathy began her career at Ambion as the Web Content Manager. At the time, not all products were listed on the company’s web site. The site also contained scant technical information and lacked a search function. She and her team revamped the site (an ongoing process continued by her successors). In need of another challenge, she became involved with RNA Interference (RNAi), which she says was “the hottest technology to hit the life science field since PCR.”

As it turned out, Kathy was in the right place at the right time. While she had no training or research experience in this area, since knowledge about RNAi was not available when she was in school, Kathy was suddenly at the forefront of a revolutionary technology. “RNAi finally allowed scientists to design a reagent that would silence the expression of a specific gene to study its function—one only needed to know the gene sequence.”

RNAi, Therapeutics, and Noncoding Regulatory RNA
Kathy sees many frontiers opening in the wake of RNAi research. “We serve researchers who are interested in understanding the basics of gene function, as well as researchers trying to develop siRNA therapeutics,” she says. “While there are still problems to be solved regarding in vivo siRNA delivery, siRNA-based therapeutics presents a huge opportunity for drug development. In addition, our team has applied our knowledge of siRNA product development to design and market reagents for manipulating miRNA levels in cells. The research community has just barely scratched the surface of understanding gene regulation via noncoding regulatory RNAs. Reagents that our team has developed to target specific genes for silencing and to mimic and inhibit miRNAs are helping scientists around the world unravel the mystery of these tiny RNA regulators.”