Genetic 'doping' imminent problem for athletes: Experts (AP)

Genetic 'doping' imminent problem for athletes: Experts

William McCall (AP)
Portland (Oregon), February 12|10:46 IST

The 2008 Olympics are still a long way away but worries are already growing about whether it will become the first genetically enhanced competition in amateur sports.

Dr. Theodore Friedmann, a top adviser to the World Anti-Doping Agency, said the arrival of so-called "gene doping" to enhance performance is "inevitable".

"The question, of course, is how genetic technology can be used to push the performance of athletes, and at what point does that kind of manipulation cease to be sport and become just an exercise in biotechnology," Friedmann said.

Gene doping involves transferring genes directly into human cells to blend into an athlete's own DNA in order to enhance muscle growth and increase strength or endurance.

Unlike steroids or drugs, the added genes would not be detectable, although Friedmann said the resulting changes in an athlete's body could show that doping had occurred.

But technology typically moves faster than ways to regulate it, raising concerns among doctors, lawyers, trainers and athletes who fear gene doping could become the next major sports scandal after the controversy over steroid use this past year.

Friedmann was part of a forum on Thursday at Portland State University to discuss those concerns and help raise awareness about the threat of gene doping.

Max Mehlman, a professor of biomedical ethics at Case Western Reserve University, said every leap in biotechnology makes it harder to prevent athletes from taking advantage of it.

"These new techniques are likely to be far more powerful and immediate and sophisticated," Mehlman said.

"The question is, can we prevent that? And in order to be able to prevent it we have to tell when it has happened, we have to be able to detect it, and then we have to have a way of stopping people from making genetic modifications," he said.