"In medicine, such risks are accepted by patients and by the profession that danger is being undertaken for purposes of healing and preventing pain and suffering," Friedmann says. "If those same tools when applied to a healthy young athlete were to go wrong, there would be far less ethical comfort for having done it. And one would not like to be in the middle of a society that blindly accepts throwing [erythropoietin (EPO)] genes into athletes so they can have improved endurance performance." EPO has been a favorite target for people interested in manipulating blood production in patients with cancer or chronic kidney disease. It has also been used and abused by professional cyclists and other athletes looking to improve their endurance.
Another scheme has been to inject an athlete's muscles with a gene that suppresses myostatin, a protein that inhibits muscle growth. With that, Sweeney says, "you're off and running as a gene doper. I don't know if anyone is doing it, but I think if someone with scientific training read the literature they might be able to figure out how to succeed at this point," even though testing of myostatin inhibitors injected directly into specific muscles has not progressed beyond animals.
Myostatin inhibitors as well as EPO and IGF-1 genes have been early candidates for gene-based doping, but they're not the only ones, Friedmann says. The vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) gene instructs the body to form signal proteins that help it increase blood flow by sprouting new blood vessels in muscle. These proteins have been used to treat macular degeneration and to restore the oxygen supply to tissues when blood circulation is inadequate. Other tempting genes could be those that affect pain perception, regulate glucose levels, influence skeletal muscle adaptation to exercise and aid respiration.
Games at the 2012 Olympics
Gene manipulation is a big wild card at this year's Olympics, Roth says. "People have been predicting for the past several Olympics that there will be gene doping at the next Olympics, but there's never been solid evidence." Gene therapy is often studied in a medical context, and it fails a lot of the time, he notes. "Even if a gene therapy is known to be solid in terms of treating a disease, when you throw it into the context of athletic performance, you're dealing with the unknown."
The presence of gene doping is hard to detect with certainty. Most of the tests that might succeed require tissue samples from athletes under suspicion. "We're talking about a muscle biopsy, and there aren't a lot of athletes who will be willing to give tissue samples when they're getting ready to compete," Roth says. Gene manipulation is not likely to show up in the blood stream, urine or saliva, so the relatively nonintrusive tests of those fluids are not likely to determine much.
In response, WADA has adopted a new testing approach called the Athlete Biological Passport (ABP), which will be used at the London Olympics. Several international sporting authorities such as the International Cycling Union have also begun to use it. The key to ABP's success is that, rather than looking ad hoc for a specific agent—such as EPO—the program monitors an athlete's body over time for sudden changes, such as a jump up in red blood cell count.
Another way to detect the presence of gene doping is to recognize how the body responds to a foreign gene—notably, defense mechanisms it might deploy. "The effect of any drug or foreign gene will be complicated by an organism trying to prevent harm from that manipulation," Friedmann says—rather than from intended changes induced by EPO, for example.
The Olympic games make clear that all athletes are not created equal, but that hard work and dedication can give an athlete at least an outside chance of victory even if competitors come from the deeper end of the gene pool. "Elite performance is necessarily a combination of genetically based talent and training that exploits those gifts," Roth says. "If you could equalize all environmental factors, then the person with some physical or mental edge would win the competition. Fortunately those environmental factors do come into play, which gives sport the uncertainty and magic that spectators crave."
Subscription Center
Rights & Permissions
See what we're tweeting about
18 Comments
Add CommentHas anyone been able to get past the %#@&$%@ oil company's ad to see the second and third parts of the article?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHi,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReally a great post. Reading is my passion and i like reading this type of stuff always. Nice sharing friend.
Regards,
Guillermo | <a href="https://www.rx247.net/cialis.html">Cialis Online</a>
Hello,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisVery nice, I appreciated what you have done here, Good job! Keep posting
Regards,
<a href="http://www.carlmontpharmacy.com/generic_cialis.php">Generic Cialis</a>
I was wondering how that female Chinese swimmer clocked a faster time in her freestyle leg of the IM than the world record holder male swimmer.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd she passed her drug test.
Thanks Larry for telling me how she and the Chinese researchers did it!
I figured it was something, but hadn't thought of gene manipulation.
Появление генетически модифицированных людей это начало новой цивилизации и начало конца нашей цивилизации.Они будут умнее,сильнее,красивее,меньше будут болеть но они утратят человеческие качества присущие нам.В дальнейшем они нас будут использовать как гастайбайтеров и генетический материал,отношение к нам будет соответственное.Генетическое модифицирование приведёт к тому,что на генном уровне генетически модифицированное создание нельзя будет идентифицировать на генном уровне как человека.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thislove this affectionate of capacity are absolutely interesting, bloom is absolutel <a href="https://www.rx247.net">Generic viagra sildenafil</a> yimportant, we accept to be accurate to access a advantageous activity and
this way adore aggregate accustomed with our ancestors or humans around.
@ Knyaz,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou can obviously follow this item in English. Why do you react in a language and a script that is not English?
Если бы я знал английский я бы обязательно писал на этом языке.Меня в твиттере читают серёзные имеющие мировое значение организации и они не не жалуются на проблемы с переводом,также как и я на плохой перевод.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGene therapy or genetic alterations of athletes may be the next step for top athletes. A most likely gene candidate is the Insulinlike growth factor 1 (IGF-1)- yes- perhaps it could replace injections of anabolic steroids? That is a scary thought? So much for screening urine from a cup!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt would be such a blessing if more research took place to figure out how to alter genes to stop certain diseases from taking control of peoples lives. I wonder how one alteration affects other genes though? Is there any research on how additions to one gene affected all of the other genes?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisГенетические изменения спортсменов это первый шаг,второй шаг будет генетические изменения обычных людей и не допущения рождения младенцев с обычными не модифицированными генами.Благими намерениями устлана дорога в ад.Если ген содержит наследственную информацию(мы её получили от Создателя) то от кого получит такую информацию следующее поколение людей?Будут ли они на генном уровне людьми?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe research done on the gene IGF-1 and PPAR-delta is somewhat scary stuff. If they could inject mice with this stuff to give them increased muscle mass and fatigue resistance, what's to stop people from doing the same to children. I can envision parents or just trainers so focused on their child or athlete being a success that they are willing to try untested gene therapy on them. Could this research usher in a group of above-human athletes who perform at extremely high levels? I wonder if in the future we will see cases of genetic manipulation with athletes much more regularly.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's interesting that athletes seem to be genetically predisposed to perform well in certain sports, rather than others (beyond the obvious height, build, and bone structure). Looking at this from a cultural (rather than individual perspective)-- Could that be part of the reason that certain nations perform well at certain sports? For example, Jamaica is known for its sprinters and Ethiopia and Kenya for their long distance runners. Perhaps the runners from these nations carry traits that are widely present in their respective cultures, rather than just their families. If this is so, how did these traits originate? What environmental factors over time caused Jaimaicans to exhibit the speed of fast-twitch fibers rather than the endurance of slow-twitch fibers displayed in Kenyan distance runners?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWatching the London Olympics and seeing how fast people run, swim, and jump almost seems unreal. When I was watching I started to think about how crazy it is to see records people held from 60's and 70's and how much faster people have gotten. It makes me think is it just the training that allows athletes to get better or are they getting some sort of chemical edge? I hope that the testing techniques develop along with the chemicals being created and used.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt doesn't surprise me that athletes would try to gene-dope. I find it fascinating how complex the genes are that contribute to muscle composition and development. From a more philosophical/theological view point, I wonder if people are drawn to certain sports because they have the genetic make up for said sport or if people can obtain athletic greatness based soley on training and not genetical advantage. To add the theological side, does God affect the genes of people in such a way as to make them more suitable for certain sports and then adds the desire for said sport in the hearts as they grow up? It is interesting to think that God might do so in order to use a professional athlete to furthur His kingdom through their sporting career.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat an interesting article. Gene therapy is still so new, no one knows the long-term risks involved. Is it worth winning the gold medal if you end up dying 5 years later?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScience is progressing at a remarkable pace, and Olympic officials may need to increase testing on athletes (require muscle biopsy before competition). Maybe countries should just race genetically improved mice instead? ;)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn the opposite end of the scale, this is exciting stuff. IGF-1 stimulates muscle growth and repair; imagine if this is the key to curing muscular dystrophy and other degenerative diseases! Obviously, gene therapy has no place in the athletic world, but the possibilities in the medical field are endless.
I am constantly amazed by the intricacy of the human body, especially at the molecular level. It is fascinating to think that gene therapy could essentially be a useful method in treating certain diseases. However, I worry about the possible side effects of such therapy. Each gene is linked to a web of pathways, which enable the body to function. The insertion of a particular gene could result in the over-production of a specific protein, which could then have a chain reaction on the pathway of that gene. As stated in the article, there could be hundreds of genes that impact muscle growth/function. It seems as though there is much uncertainty about gene therapy and I feel as though much research is necessary before it is utilized. As for the athletic side of things, I amazed at the lengths people will go to succeed. I feel as though one's God given ability and hard work should be enough and I see no glory in achieving victory in any other way. It is amazing that gene therapy could have such positive results, but it is a sad thought that people will use it as a shortcut to success.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this