Genetic Enhancement/Gene Doping

Just returned from a conference in Cleveland, Ohio, dealing with the many different aspects and potential effects of sequencing the human genome. I'll write in the next couple of days about items that particularly interested me.

But first, what is genomics?

I hate to admit it, but when I first joined a group at the Utah Department of Health to discuss genomics, I had no idea what it was. Surprising to me was the fact that others gave me quick definitions, but they varied considerably. So, here's some of the ones you might consider:

Wikipedia: Genomics is the study of an organism's entire genome. The field includes intensive efforts to determine the entire DNA sequence of organisms and fine-scale genetic mapping efforts. The field also includes studies of intragenomic phenomena such as heterosis, epistasis, pleiotropy and other interactions between loci and alleles within the genome. In contrast, the investigation of single genes, their functions and roles, something very common in today's medical and biological research, and a primary focus of molecular biology, does not fall into the definition of genomics, unless the aim of this genetic, pathway, and functional information analysis is to elucidate its effect on, place in, and response to the entire genome's networks.

Because our organization is currently operating on no outside fundiing, we've chosen to keep our website simple. One loss, as far as I'm concerned, is the inability to search for specific blog entries using key words. I'm sorry that is the case. A search engine that is not flexible enough to find what you are looking for is worse, we believe, than nothing.

So, here's what you do if you are interested in a particular topic: click on the linkis at the left, by subject. There was only one entry in bioweapons--the blogger quit almost immediately, so that's not on the list. However, the other general topics are. They look really weird, you say. That's true, but for some programming reason I do not understand, such topic lists look weird on a number of sites--including those written by professionals who really know their html, etc.

"We are not yet at a point where we can identify a potential future Olympic champion from genetic tests but we may not be very far away," said one of the authors of the British Association of Sport and Exercise's (BASE) position paper on "Genetic Research and Testing in Sport and Exercise Science."

However, BASE calls for more genetic research in the sport and exercise sciences because of the anticipated benefits for public health. It wants researchers to take a more active role in debating the implications of their work with the public.

"If a powerful muscle growth gene was identified, on the one hand this could help develop training programmes that increase muscle size and strength in athletes, but even more importantly the knowledge could be used to develop exercise programmes or drugs to combat muscle wasting in old age," said Dr Alun Williams from Manchester Metropolitan University, one of the report's authors.