Gene-doping 'new threat to the integrity of competitive sport'

Gene-doping may be the new threat to the integrity of competitive sport, according to Dr Cristiana Velloso, research associate at the Centre for Human and Aerospace Physiological Sciences, King's College London.

With anti-doping laboratories working around the clock at this year's Olympics, there could be a new threat on the horizon in the form of gene-doping. Although there is not yet any evidence that the practice has taken place, it has been banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency since 2003, and many laboratory scientists believe that it could become a new threat to competitive sport.

Dr Velloso wrote in the June issue of the Society of Biology's magazine, The Biologist, that gene doping in animals has already produced fascinating results, and these could be transferable to humans in the near future, possibly on a wide scale.

"Gene doping is enhancing athlete performance using cells, genes, or genetic material, or altering the expression of genes. There are huge technical challenges to gene doping, but current research suggests it has great potential to enhance athlete performance," she explained.

Discussing the developments on animals, she described how so-called 'marathon mice' can run virtually non-stop for distances of 5km, compared to an average of 0.2km observed in wild type mice. This is possible because they have been genetically modified so a specific enzyme in skeletal muscles is present in higher quantities.

This raises a question among anti-doping authorities over whether gene-doping is detectable. Because they produce biological muscles, use of gene-doping wouldn’t show up in current tests, and if the gene was only expressed in a small area, such as specific leg muscles, then detection will be extremely difficult. A tissue biopsy may be the only way to detect it, but this would be an extremely invasive technique for a routine test.

Dr Velloso says: "The time may not be far off when someone's genes could be used as an additional tool to identify performance potential, or shape training, nutrition and drugging regimens. The counterpoint is that this advancing knowledge will also provide new weapons in the fight against doping, whether genetic or not."

Posted by Fiona Griffiths