Gene Doping

Ravi P. Agrahari (Science & Technology)

• Gene doping is a form of gene modification similar to gene therapy, but rather than altering genes to treat or prevent an illness, they are changed to make normal genes perform differently. Altering genes to enhance athletic performance is the most viable reason for gene doping.

• There are two ways in which gene doping could be used to enhance athletic performance.

1. Doctors could change genes the athlete already possessed in order to make them more competitive or

2. genes could be added to change an athlete's physical makeup.

• Gene doping represents a threat to the integrity of sport and the health of athletes, and as the international organization responsible for promoting, coordinating and monitoring the global fight against doping in sport in all its forms, WADA is devoting significant resources and attention to ways that will enable the detection of gene doping.

• In March 2002, a workshop on gene doping was organized by WADA at the Banbury Center in New York. Experts, scientists, ethicists, athletes, and representatives from the Olympic Movement and governments examined the issue. In 2004, WADA also created an Expert Group on gene doping. The Expert Group’s task is to study the latest advances in the field of gene therapy, the methods for detecting doping and the research projects funded by WADA in this area.

- In December 2005, WADA, in collaboration with the Karolinska

Institute and the Swedish Sports Confederation, held a second workshop meeting in Stockholm on the subject.

- In June 2008, the Agency organized, in cooperation with the Russian sport authorities, a third expert meeting on genetic enhancement of athletic performance in Saint Petersburg. A feature on the 2008 WADA Gene Doping Symposium held in Saint Petersburg is available in WADA's Play True Magazine's third issue of 2008, posted in the Download Center to the right.

- Play True Magazine's first issue of 2005 was dedicated to the topic of gene doping. Visit the Download Center to access this publication, as well as an interview, published in 2007, with Prof Theodore Friedmann, Chair of WADA's Gene Doping Expert Group.

Gene Doping - Gene therapy for restoring muscle lost to age or disease is poised to enter

the clinic, but athletes are eyeing it to enhance performance. The non-therapeutic use of cells, genes, genetic elements, or of the modulation of gene expression, having the capacity to improve athletic performance is defined as Gene Doping by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

- A complex ethical and philosophical issue is what defines gene doping, especially in the context of bioethical debates about human enhancement. Gene doping could involve the recreational use of gene therapies intended to treat muscle-wasting disorders. Many of these chemicals may be indistinguishable from their natural counterparts. In such cases, nothing unusual would enter the bloodstream so officials would detect nothing in a blood or urine test. For example, gene doping could be used to provide athletes a source of erythropoietin (EPO), a hormone that promotes the formation of red blood cells that is already widely abused in sports. Another candidate gene is Insulin-like Growth Factor 1 (IGF-1) which partly controls the building and repair of muscles by stimulating the proliferation of satellite cells.

The historical development of policy associated with gene doping began in 2001 when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Medical Commission met to discuss the implications of gene therapy for sport. It was shortly followed by the WADA, which met in 2002 to discuss genetic enhancement. In 2003, WADA decided to include a prohibition of gene doping within their World Anti-Doping Code, which is formalized in its 2004 World Anti-Doping Code. In 2004, the Netherlands Centre for Doping Affairs (NeCeDo) and the WADA have organized a “Gene Doping” workshop. In addition, NeCeDo has published a report on gene doping as an inventory of the possible applications and risks of genetic manipulation in sports. Although there have been no documented cases of gene doping, the science of gene therapy and interest in the techniques by the sports community has risen to a level that makes gene doping inevitable.

˃ The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has already asked

scientists to help find ways to prevent gene therapy from becoming the newest means of doping.

˃ In December 2005, the World Anti-Doping Agency hosted its second landmark meeting on gene doping, which took place in Stockholm. At this meeting, the delegates drafted a declaration on gene doping which, for the first time, included a strong discouragement of the use of genetic testing for performance.

˃ Recently, German scientists from Tübingen and Mainz have developed a blood test that can reliably detect gene doping even after 56 days: "For the first time, a direct method is now available that uses conventional blood samples to detect doping via gene transfer". See news item: Gene Doping Detectable With a Simple Blood Test.

Analogous to gene doping, non-therapeutic applications of gene therapy can be envisaged in animals for the purpose of growth stimulation and improved meat production (see also Belgian Blue Bull), for example by growth hormone, myostatin and anabolic hormones. Gene doping to improve sport performance is not limited to humans, but has also interest in for example the sport of horse racing.

• The globe Anti-Doping Agency defines this as the non salutary use of genes, genetic elements. The cells have the capability to boost athletic performance.

• The globe Anti-Doping Agency defines this as the non salutary use of genes, genetic elements. The cells have the capability to boost athletic performance.

With the dawn of gene therapy, a shortest way to

deliver proteins and hormones to an athlete’s tissues and organs turn into reality. A substance can change the basic genetic expression of DNA such as that muscle grow larger, recover more quickly and contract extra forcefully.

The non-doped muscles cannot be noticed by anti-

doping laboratories would be perfect to gain a competition advantage. Gene’s doping has two types.

• Ex vivo doping: The method of exogenous gene doping includes gene transfer to cells in culture first, then placement of the tissue into the recipient. Once implanted into the athlete’s cell, the new genes utter biochemicals or hormones that increase performance of the person during competitions.

• In vivo gene doping: The liberation of the new gene into an athlete can be through physical, biologic or chemical methods. Viruses can be customized biologically insert the artificial gene into cells in an exact organ or target tissue or into cells throughout the competitor’s body.