Gene doping can make one run like Marion Jones

Sometime in the near future, an athlete might walk into a lab and ask for an injection that, with the prick of the needle, will bring a world of possibility. Take this and hit home runs like Barry Bonds, the athlete would be told. Take it and fly around the track like Marion Jones.

This might sound like another story about steroids, back in the headlines after baseball announced last Thursday that it was adopting a stricter testing policy amid calls for reform, but it?s not. The topic is genetic doping.

Because it uses DNA to stimulate or block natural chemicals ? chemicals that make changes within the body at the cellular level ? it won?t show up in a blood or urine test.

With billions of dollars at stake every year in sports and the lure of fame stronger than ever, gene doping is expected to be the next major issue for sports to confront. Experts in the field of genetic research predict it could happen in five or 10 years. Or sooner.

?I don?t think it would surprise any of us if tomorrow we picked up a newspaper and saw that (an athlete) had died of a stroke after getting involved with gene therapy,? said Dr Theodore Friedmann, director of the gene therapy program at the University of California at San Diego. He is considered by many to be the world?s leading authority in the field.

Genetic doping has the potential to make a mockery of what is currently considered fair athletic competition.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has formed a panel to study the issue and come up with methods for detection. The panel of scientists, led by Friedmann, will meet for the first time next month.

?There?s no firm evidence right now that people are using genetic manipulation to enhance performance,? he said, ?but there have been a number of studies done with animals like mice and rats that suggest such a thing can be done.?

Gene therapy isn?t a new concept by any means. Over the past 30 years scientists have been making numerous breakthroughs. In recent years, techniques have been developed in rats in which a synthetic version of the gene that produces insulin-like growth factor 1, or IGF-1, can be used to spur muscle growth or repair at the cellular level.

What worries both scientists and anti-doping officials is the potential for abuse in the name of athletics, Friedmann said. And because the technology is so new, no one knows what adverse effects gene transfer might have on humans. Already there are fears that cancer could be one of the long-term side effects.

?It?s very dangerous, very early in the development, and highly experimental,? Friedmann said. ?The people doing these studies have already been getting calls, many, many times from the athletes themselves, asking if there is the opportunity to use these techniques now. So there is interest. And as long as you have interest, money and rogues (scientists without ethics or oversight), there is going to be action.?

Part of what will probably make genetic doping appealing to athletes is the difficulty of detection. In the case of IGF-1, because the synthetic gene activates natural chemicals that repair and build muscles, evidence of doping would be difficult to find.

Detection might involve a magnetic resonance imaging scan or muscle biopsies, which would require inserting a large needle into the muscle.

?You would need muscle biopsies done relatively close to competition,? said Dr Steven Roth, a professor of kinesiology at the University of Maryland. ?How many athletes are going to agree to that?

It?s not feasible.

?Some of the genes might be produced by a different muscle. Different muscles process proteins differently. So these anti-doping agencies would need to know ahead of time what gene they were looking for in order to know what to test. That?s definitely an advantage for the bad guys.?

?It?s going to cost 10 times as much to test for genetic doping than it costs to test for steroids,? Ungerleider said. ?And the technology is going to be hard to come by.?

Friedmann, also chairman of the National Institutes of Health Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee that oversees all gene therapy trials in the United States, said genetic doping might force society to address the larger question of what sports should really be about.

?A lot of us grew up with the very romantic view of sports,? he said. ?Athletics is such an important part of society because it?s about accomplishment against physical odds. Doping in general poses the questions of, ?What is sport? What do we want sport to be? Do we want it to be about athletic achievement or about pharmacology??

?We can all sit here and glorify a few more home runs, and it?s terrific, but it?s not sport any longer.?