Genetically modified muscle monsters
Only one more day until the 2008 Summer Olympic Games start. Needless to say that these Games will be a prime example of Love, Peace and Harmony (at least when visiting the slashed “world” wide web from an internet café in Beijing…).
However, I have to muddy the good mood a little. Quit the OSM (= Olympic Smile Mode) for a while, please, and arm yourself for a bad word:
Gene - yuck! - doping. Gene doping.
For years, naysayers gloomily have predicted that gene doping will soon emerge to a great challenge, forecasting souped-up muscle monsters prizing up heavy-weight barbells in a flash and finishing the 100 meters in less than 9 seconds afterwards. But let’s stay cool – actually, the topic “gene doping” is rather science fiction (at least, if you allude to successful gene therapy in humans).
Still, the USADA (the US Antidoping agency) and the WADA (the World Anti-Doping Agency) want to be prepared. They have commissioned Canadian researcher Jim Rupert to develop new testing methods which will track down those misusing gene-based medical treatments in the future. Mr Rupert got a $325,000 grant last year to come up with a prototype assay to detect siRNA mediated gene doping (to tell the difference between real hormones and those created by gene therapy).
Rupert admitted this could be difficult. To look after something that still doesn’t exist is a tricky job.
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Comments
Very interesting!!! WADA is preparing since 2004 for this. A ray of hope for a more fair-minded competition.
More on this delicate issue: Developing strategies for detection of gene doping ([1] a 2007 review article), and here is a brand-new, worth reading story on Student BMJ [2].
A compendium of all genes and markers that have been associated with performance and health-related fitness phenotypes in scientific papers published by the end of 2005 you can find in the
Human Gene Map
(link: http://www.acsm.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home_Page&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&CONTENTFILEID=951)
for Performance Phenotypes (more than 180 loci overall!)
(google ‘Performance and HealthRelated Fitness Phenotypes Human Gene Map 2005′ link works only when accesse from google http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/551096 )
On the WADA web page listed belwo you can find many more preventive research projects on gene doping – such as the application of cellular chemistry and proteomic approaches to the detection of gene doping and a nice pilot study to develop a blood test for the detection of gene doping after intramuscular injection of naked plasmid DNA.
http://www.wada-ama.org/en/dynamic.ch2?pageCategory.id=347