There was an article in the St. Petersburg Times yesterday pinned by Paul Farhi of the Washington Post concerning gene doping. He brought up a good question: What will the sports industry do, or Olympic committee for that matter, to detect if an athlete has had gene therapy? The reason for this question is the next frontier is Gene Doping. Physiologist H. Lee Sweeney of the University of Pennsylvania has created “Schwarzenegger” mice by injecting them with a gene known to stimulate muscle growth. The mice grew muscles that were 15 to 30 percent bigger than normal, even though the mice were SEDITARY.
Here’s the really wild part, apparently the stuff can be made to be site specific. They inject only one leg of a group of rats and put them on an exercise regiment. What they noticed was that the injected leg grew stronger and larger while the other leg remained the same. After stopping the program the injected leg lost strength at a slower rate than the none-injected leg.
It’s very easy to see where this is going. Pretty soon athletes will be able to rebuild damaged muscles when injured through gene therapy. Steroids may soon be a thing of the past. With that in mind how is any governing body of the sports industry going to be able to tell if a record broken in an event is the result of gene doping or the efforts of the athlete him/herself?
I have to admit, given the opportunity, I’d give it a go. Definitely a good thing for people suffering from muscle wasting diseases.
