Unique among unique. Is it genetically determined? [Br J Sports Med. 2008] – PubMed Result <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18662936?dopt=Abstract>

Br J Sports Med. 2008 Jul 28. [Epub ahead of print]

Unique among unique. Is it genetically determined?

Gonzalez-Freire M <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=Search&Term=%22Gonzalez-Freire%20M%22%5BAuthor%5D&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVAbstract> , Santiago C <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=Search&Term=%22Santiago%20C%22%5BAuthor%5D&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVAbstract> , Verde Z <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=Search&Term=%22Verde%20Z%22%5BAuthor%5D&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVAbstract> , Lao JI <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=Search&Term=%22Lao%20JI%22%5BAuthor%5D&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVAbstract> , Oiivan J <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=Search&Term=%22Oiivan%20J%22%5BAuthor%5D&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVAbstract> , Gómez-Gallego F <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=Search&Term=%22G%C3%B3mez-Gallego%20F%22%5BAuthor%5D&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVAbstract> , Lucia A <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=Search&Term=%22Lucia%20A%22%5BAuthor%5D&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVAbstract> .

Universidad Europea de Madrid, Spain.

The cross-country World championship is one of the best models to study characteristics needed to achieve top-level endurance athletic capacity. We report the genotype combination of a recent cross-country champion (12km race) in polymorphisms of seven genes that are candidates to influence endurance phenotype traits (ACTN3, ACE, PPARGC1A, AMPD1, CKMM, GDF8 (myostatin) and HFE). His data were compared with those of eight other runners (World class but not World champions). The only athlete with the theoretically more suited genotype for attaining World-class endurance running performance was the case study subject. A favourable genetic endowment, together with exceptional environmental factors (years of altitude living and training in this case) seems to be necessary to attain the highest possible level of running endurance performance.

Ethics @ Work: Let the ‘Mutant Games’ begin

Aug. 14, 2008
Asher Meir , THE JERUSALEM POST
We are fortunate that the sporting news from Beijing has come mainly from the playing field, and not from the laboratory. Cycling coverage is always a close race between the results from the course and the results of the drug policing, but following the disqualification of a number of Russian women athletes, doping has been pretty much out of the news at the Olympics. However, the reality of doping is always looming in the background, and the spectators are left wondering, does s/he or doesn’t s/he?

The assumption that doping is more or less pervasive, and that the vagaries of defining and detecting it will always make enforcement arbitrary, has led a number of observers to draw a fascinating parallel between today’s prohibition on doping and the previous prohibition on professionalism.

Nowadays the Olympics are all about money. The papers are filled with estimates of how much a gold medal costs in terms of the infrastructure needed to create champions (it’s about $30 million) and much how one is worth in terms of endorsements (often seven figures for tennis players or track athletes, more like five or six for fencers or synchronized swimmers).

It’s hard to believe that as recently as the 1980s strict rules against professionalism were in place. Anyone who earned money from sport (this once applied even to teachers of sport), or anyone who competed against others who earned money from sport, was disqualified. The legendary American athlete Jim Thorpe, who won two Olympic gold medals in the 1912 Stockholm Olympics, had his medals stripped after it was revealed that he had played minor league baseball years before.

Strict enforcement of the amateurism rules would have meant that only independently wealthy individuals would be able to compete. What happened instead was a cynical and arbitrary application of the rules.

The Soviet bloc had athletes who were professionals in every sense, though their profession was usually listed as soldier or student, while the West had an elaborate system of under-the-table payments, “expense” payments, trust funds and so on. The system was a nightmare, since all athletes received money but only some were disqualified. Finally in the 1990s the system fell apart. The de facto professionalism of Soviet bloc athletes, which gave them an immense advantage in international competition, was a critical factor.

The parallel to doping is expressed as follows: Just as it was practically impossible to compete on an international level in the 20th century without accepting money, so it is practically impossible to compete on an international level in the 21st century without using performance-enhancing substances. (This of course has not been proven.)

The exact definition of doping is subject to dispute, just as the exact definition of professionalism is. Both can take place in secret, making enforcement necessarily arbitrary. The conclusion: Rules against doping should fall by the wayside just as rules against professionalism did.

The counterargument is as follows: In the case of professionalism, almost all the athletes wanted to get money, and most of the spectators didn’t mind if they did. In the case of doping, almost all of the athletes prefer not to take performance-enhancing substances, and almost all of the spectators also prefer that they don’t.

The athletes prefer no doping because doping regimens require a huge amount of effort and expense, and because many of the drugs are dangerous. For example, the endurance-enhancing drug EPO thickens the blood, and is the prime suspect in the sudden early deaths of a number of cyclists. Insiders tell of cyclists getting up in the middle of the night to exercise in order to get the blood moving to prevent their doped blood from killing them; obviously they would prefer getting a good night’s sleep.

The spectators prefer no doping because they don’t care about outcomes, they only care about the competition – a level playing field. Women’s tennis is nearly as popular as men’s, even though the top women are no match for mediocre male players, because it is a fair and exciting game. The playing field is most level without doping.

But what if it’s not true? The same “arms race” hypothesis was advanced for professionalism in sport, and was proven false. Maybe the athletes want to push the envelope of the ultimate capabilities of the technology-aided human body, while the spectators want to see the tallest, fastest and strongest athletes science can provide!

John Tierney of The New York Times has an interesting suggestion to test this idea: Set up an alternative “no-holds-barred” competition with no doping tests allowed. (He even gives some suggestions for names, including the “Mutant Games.”) One must assume that the regular leagues will ban anyone who takes part in these competitions, even if they submit to the testing regimen, just as the amateur rules forbade not only professionals but also amateurs who competed against them.

If the athletes are chafing at the testing regimen and the spectators want to see drug-aided competitors, then the new league will draw competitors and spectators; if not, then the “arms-race” hypothesis of doping will have been proven true.

There is a slight problem with this test, due to the great prestige of the official events. Attempts to establish professional athletic competitions in the 20th century were unsuccessful, because athletes discovered they could make much more money in the more prestigious amateur leagues. Yet when the prestige events themselves allowed professionals, everyone was happy.

I personally am strongly inclined to believe the received wisdom; that doping is a destructive arms race, and that everyone besides the undertakers would be happy to get rid of it. But Tierney’s suggestion is an interesting way to see if the received wisdom is correct.

ethics-at-work@besr.org

Asher Meir is research director at the Business Ethics Center of Jerusalem (www.besr.org), an independent institute in the Jerusalem College of Technology.

New Genetic Test Asks Which Sport a Child Was Born to Play
By JULIET MACUR <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/juliet_macur/index.html?inline=nyt-per>
BOULDER, Colo. — When Donna Campiglia learned recently that a genetic test might be able to determine which sports suit the talents of her 2 ∏-year-old son, Noah, she instantly said, Where can I get it and how much does it cost?
“I could see how some people might think the test would pigeonhole your child into doing fewer sports or being exposed to fewer things, but I still think it’s good to match them with the right activity,” Ms. Campiglia, 36, said as she watched a toddler class at Boulder Indoor Soccer in which Noah struggled to take direction from the coach between juice and potty breaks.
“I think it would prevent a lot of parental frustration,” she said.
In health-conscious, sports-oriented Boulder, Atlas Sports Genetics <http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/specialtopic/genetics/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier>  is playing into the obsessions of parents by offering a $149 test that aims to predict a child’s natural athletic strengths. The process is simple. Swab inside the child’s cheek and along the gums to collect the DNA and return it to a lab for analysis of ACTN3, one gene among more than 20,000 in the human genome.
The test’s goal is to determine whether a person would be best at speed and power sports like sprinting or football, or endurance sports like distance running, or a combination of the two. A 2003 study discovered the link between ACTN3 and those athletic abilities.
In this era of genetic testing, DNA is being analyzed to determine predispositions to disease, but experts raise serious questions about marketing it as a first step in finding a child’s sports niche, which some parents consider the road to a college scholarship or a career as a professional athlete.
Atlas executives acknowledge that their test has limitations but say that it could provide guidelines for placing youngsters in sports. The company is focused on testing children from infancy to about 8 years old because physical tests to gauge future sports performance at that age are, at best, unreliable.
Some experts say ACTN3 testing in its infancy and virtually useless. Dr. Theodore Friedmann, the director of the University of California-San Diego Medical Center’s interdepartmental gene therapy program, called it “an opportunity to sell new versions of snake oil.”
“This may or may not be quite that venal, but I would like to see a lot more research done before it is offered to the general public,” he said. “I don’t deny that these genes have a role in athletic success, but it’s not that black and white.”
Stephen M. Roth, director of the functional genomics laboratory at the University of Maryland <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/university_of_maryland/index.html?inline=nyt-org> ’s School of Public Health who has studied ACTN3, said he thought the test would become popular. But he had reservations.
“The idea that it will be one or two genes that are contributing to the Michael Phelpses or the Usain Bolts of the world I think is shortsighted because it’s much more complex than that,” he said, adding that athletic performance has been found to be affected by at least 200 genes.
Dr. Roth called ACTN3 “one of the most exciting and eyebrow-raising genes out there in the sports-performance arena,” but he said that any test for the gene would be best used only on top athletes looking to tailor workouts to their body types.
“It seems to be important at very elite levels of competition,” Dr. Roth said. “But is it going to affect little Johnny when he participates in soccer, or Suzy’s ability to perform sixth grade track and field? There’s very little evidence to suggest that.”
The study that identified the connection between ACTN3 and elite athletic performance was published in 2003 by researchers primarily based in Australia.
Those scientists looked at the gene’s combinations, one copy provided by each parent. The R variant of ACTN3 instructs the body to produce a protein, alpha-actinin-3, found specifically in fast-twitch muscles. Those muscles are capable of the forceful, quick contractions necessary in speed and power sports. The X variant prevents production of the protein.
The ACTN3 study looked at 429 elite white athletes, including 50 Olympians, and found that 50 percent of the 107 sprint athletes had two copies of the R variant. Even more telling, no female elite sprinter had two copies of the X variant. All male Olympians in power sports had at least one copy of the R variant.
Conversely, nearly 25 percent of the elite endurance athletes had two copies of the X variant — only slightly higher than the control group at 18 percent. That means people with two X copies are more likely to be suited for endurance sports.
Still, some athletes prove science, and seemingly their genetics, wrong. Research on an Olympic long jumper from Spain showed that he had no copies of the R variant, demonstrating that athletic success is most likely affected by a combination of genes as well as factors like environment, work ethic, nutrition <http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/specialtopic/food-guide-pyramid/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier>  and luck.
“Just think if that Spanish kid’s parents had done the test and said, ‘No, your genes show that you are going to be a bad long jumper, so we are going to make you a golfer,’ ” said Carl Foster, a co-author of the study, who is the director of the human performance laboratory at the University of Wisconsin <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/university_of_wisconsin/index.html?inline=nyt-org> -La Crosse. “Now look at him. He’s the springiest guy in Spain. He’s Tigger. We don’t yet understand what combination of genes creates that kind of explosiveness.”
Dr. Foster suggested a better way to determine if a child will be good at sprint and power sports. “Just line them up with their classmates for a race and see which ones are the fastest,” he said.
Kevin Reilly, the president of Atlas Sports Genetics and a former weight-lifting coach, expected the test to be controversial. He said some people were concerned that it would cause “a rebirth of eugenics, similar to what Hitler <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/adolf_hitler/index.html?inline=nyt-per>  did in trying to create this race of perfect athletes.”
Mr. Reilly said he feared what he called misuse by parents who go overboard with the results and specialize their children too quickly and fervently.
“I’m nervous about people who get back results that don’t match their expectations,” he said. “What will they do if their son would not be good at football? How will they mentally and emotionally deal with that?”
Mr. Reilly insisted that the test is one tool of many that can help children realize their athletic potential. It may even keep an overzealous father from pushing his son to be a quarterback if his genes indicate otherwise, Mr. Reilly said.
If ACTN3 suggests a child may be a great athlete, he said, parents should take a step back and nurture that potential Olympian or N.F.L. <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/national_football_league/index.html?inline=nyt-org>  star with careful nutrition, coaching and planning. He also said they should hold off on placing a child in a competitive environment until about the age of 8 to avoid burnout.
“Based on the test of a 5-year-old or a newborn, you are not going to see if you have the next Michael Johnson; that’s just not going to happen,” Mr. Reilly said. “But if you wait until high school or college to find out if you have a good athlete on your hands, by then it will be too late. We need to identify these kids from 1 and up, so we can give the parents some guidelines on where to go from there.”
Boyd Epley, the strength and conditioning coach at the University of Nebraska <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/university_of_nebraska/index.html?inline=nyt-org>  from 1969 to 2003, said the next step would be a physical test he devised. Atlas plans to direct children to Epic Athletic Performance, a talent identification company that uses Mr. Epley’s index. He founded the company; Mr. Reilly is its president.
China and Russia, Mr. Epley said, identify talent in the very young and whittle the pool of athletes until only the best remain for the national teams.
“This is how we could stay competitive with the rest of the world,” Mr. Epley said of genetic and physical testing. “It could, at the very least, provide you with realistic goals for you and your children.”
The ACTN3 test has been available through the Australian company Genetic Technologies since 2004. The company has marketed the test in Australia, Europe and Japan, but is now entering the United States through Atlas. The testing kit was scheduled to be available starting Monday through the Web site atlasgene.com <http://www.atlasgene.com> .
The analysis takes two to three weeks, and the results arrive in the form of a certificate announcing Your Genetic Advantage, whether it is in sprint, power and strength sports; endurance sports; or activity sports (for those with one copy of each variant, and perhaps a combination of strengths). A packet of educational information suggests sports that are most appropriate and what paths to follow so the child reaches his or her potential.
“I find it worrisome because I don’t think parents will be very clear-minded about this,” said William Morgan, an expert on the philosophy of ethics and sport and author of “Why Sports Morally Matter.” “This just contributes to the madness about sports because there are some parents who will just go nuts over the results.
“The problem here is that the kids are not old enough to make rational autonomous decisions about their own life,” he said.
Some parents will steer clear of the test for that reason.
Dr. Ray Howe, a general practitioner in Denver, said he would rather see his 2-year-old, Joseph, find his own way in life and discover what sports he likes the best. Dr. Howe, a former professional cyclist, likened ACTN3 testing to gene testing for breast cancer <http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/breast-cancer/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier>  or other diseases.
“You might be able to find those things out, but do you really want to know?” he said.
Others, like Lori Lacy, 36, said genetic testing would be inevitable. Ms. Lacy, who lives in Broomfield, Colo., has three children ranging in age from 2 months to 5 years.
“Parents will start to say, ‘I know one mom who’s doing the test on her son, so maybe we should do the test too,’ ” she said.
“Peer pressure and curiosity would send people over the edge. What if my son could be a pro football player and I don’t know it?”

Gene doping in sport: fact or fiction?

Experts believe it is only a matter of time before athletes manipulate their genetic material to gain an unfair advantage despite the current lack of proven cases.
A science journalist, who has published a novel on the theme, and a scientist working in the field of genetics talked to swissinfo about the likelihood and dangers of gene doping in sport.

Since the times of ancient Greece, a minority of athletes have employed a variety of potions to artificially boost their performance. More recently, amphetamines, anabolic steroids and hormones have been the drugs of choice.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has recently turned its attention to the threat of gene doping and officially banned the practice in 2003. There have already been suspicions of some athletes using the gene therapy Repoxygen to increase their red blood cell count and thereby allow the body to absorb more oxygen.

Professor Max Gassmann of Zurich University’s Institute of Veterinary Physiology has manipulated the erythropoietin (EPO) gene of mice to produce more oxygen carrying red blood cells – a process that could eventually be transferred to humans.

Gassmann does not think gene doping has infiltrated sport at the moment but believes some people may already be testing its potential, just as beneficial gene therapy is currently undergoing clinical trials.

“I can hardly imagine that we had a gene doping cheat winning at the Beijing Olympics,” he told swissinfo. “But there has been doping throughout history and if gene doping becomes viable then you cannot stop it, because people want to win.”
Fictional leap
Author Beat Glogger has taken the theory a stage further by writing a thriller – “Run For My Life” – about genetically modified athletes. Glogger, also a science journalist, and Gassmann contributed to a Swiss sports ministry document warning about the risks of gene doping.

Scientists have already identified more than 150 genes that potentially influence performance in sports. These include genes that control muscle growth, muscle speed and the production of red blood cells.

“I take the next step into fiction by saying it is possible to manipulate the genes that control speed, power, endurance and even mental strength. These are the four key factors for athletic performance,” Glogger told swissinfo.

There are many cases of people with naturally malfunctioning genes. Most of the time this results in health problems, such as muscular dystrophy, but the rare occurrence of a mutation can also bring benefits.

Finnish cross-country skiing legend Eero Mäntyranta won race after race in the 1960s because of a natural genetic mutation that helped his blood absorb large amounts of oxygen. It would be very hard in future to determine if such a case was caused by nature or gene manipulation, according to Glogger.

“If, after the introduction of the relevant genes, the body produces more EPO or testosterone by itself then you cannot detect it – it looks like you are a natural,” he said.
To die for
However, athletes run a high risk of developing serious diseases such as cancer or even dying if they submit to gene manipulation that is still in the early days of scientific development.

Gassmann’s genetically modified mice live only half as long as other mice. Scientists know how to modify genes and introduce them into the body, but not how to control the behaviour of such genes once they have been implanted.

“Whatever you put into the body is hard to control. If you realise it is no good then it is almost impossible to stop, and that is what could happen with gene cheating athletes,” Gassmann said. “It is easy to switch on a light but much more complicated to dim it.”

One method of controlling modified genes is to develop drugs that act like on and off switches, but this process is still in its infancy.

“Gene doping could be undetectable and it could improve performance but you could also die,” Glogger warned. Just like the characters in his book.

swissinfo, Matthew Allen in Zurich

Gene doping could be next frontier for those seeking edge

By A.J. Perez, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — From East German swimmers in the 1970s, to sprinter Ben Johnson in the 1980s, to clients of the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative (BALCO) in recent years, athletes have sought an edge in a lab.
In the future, that lab might not produce a steroid or human growth hormone but genes that, for example, could alter the webbing of a swimmer’s hands and feet.

“We already have webbed hands and feet,” said Andy Miah, a lecturer at University of the West of Scotland. “It would just be a little bit more. What … could the world of sports do about that? Absolutely nothing, nor should they be able to.”

Gene doping, considered by many experts to be the next frontier for athletes seeking a biologic edge, was the central theme Thursday at a forum hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. The presenters agreed that doping on the cellular or molecular level likely is years away, and Miah was in the minority when it came to how it should be handled by sports governing bodies.

The World Anti-Doping Agency, which sets the rules on banned substances for Olympic sports, has outlawed gene doping — even though there’s no evidence it exists in sports, nor is there a test to detect it.

“It’s going to be difficult (to detect), but we will succeed in the long run,” said Theodore Friedman, a professor at the University of California-San Diego. “Whether WADA is ahead of the curve or not, time will tell. …You’re going to be looking for changes in a cell, not testing for a drug.”

Friedman said gene therapy is “an immature field” that’s had some “highly publicized setbacks” in treating disease. Still, U.S. Anti-Doping Agency CEO Travis Tygart said it’s good that the topic is getting attention before it becomes an issue in sports.

“This discussion is miles ahead of where we were pre-BALCO, when people were questioning the need for out-of-competition testing or research,” Tygart said. “It would be naive to think the demand is not there. If you rely on the experts who study the issue, we’re still several years away from it being a legitimate risk.”

Edwin Moses, one of the best hurdlers in history, said athletes likely won’t look to gene doping until they’re forced to.

“Most guys are still going to be using the (usual) techniques,” Moses said. “They will continue to be doing it as long as there are no tests used to detect it. Some will always (cut corners). It’s like those who drink and drive and think they can get home without getting caught. Whether it’s drugs or cheating for an exam, there are always going to be people who cheat.”

Then there’s the even more far-reaching notion of prospective parents potentially altering embryos to bring out the attributes more likely to produce an elite athlete.

“The direct manipulation of embryos or fetuses is far off in the future,” said ethicist Thomas Murray, president and CEO of the Hastings Center, a bioethics research institute. “I can’t imagine finding a good argument for parents to be allowed to do that. But if they did it anyway, what would we do to their children? It’s a disturbing prospect.”

There are those who wonder if (gene) doping is OK
By HOWARD FENDRICH – 15 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — Gather a roomful of anti-doping experts, administrators, academics and athletes alike — something a conservative think tank did Thursday — and there is no consensus as to whether gene doping, thought by some to be the next frontier in Olympic cheating, is at hand.
Indeed, there isn’t even consensus on whether it would be a bad thing.
Turns out there is a school of thought — “pro-doping,” it’s called — that suggests anything athletes do to improve performance is OK, even, for example, manipulating DNA or surgically enlarging the webbing between fingers and toes in order to swim faster.
So says Andy Miah, who teaches at the University of the West of Scotland and was among about 10 panelists who participated in Thursday’s conference on “The Coming Age of the Uber-Athlete: What’s So Bad about Gene Enhancement and Doping?” at the American Enterprise Institute.
Gene doping, which is banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency, is a spin-off of gene therapy, which typically alters a person’s DNA to fight diseases.
Miah advocates “celebrating the value of performance enhancement,” he said.
“I don’t think a public health crisis would arise from enhancement technologies,” he added.
Miah said there is a growing group of professors around the world — “Four years ago, there were half as many people as now,” he noted — who back his “World Pro-Doping Agency” thought experiment. One of his premises is that sports wrongly are thought of as a separate entity, different from other pursuits or professions — music, art, medicine — where no one objects to, essentially, doing whatever one can to be the best one can be.
“We are more willing to embrace these enhancements, with the caveat that we need them to be safe enough,” he said. “We don’t all want to kill ourselves by using these things, but we are interested in exploring the realm of human embodiment that is beyond our current capabilities — and that might be cognitive, it might be physical. And I think that’s where sport isn’t quite at yet.”
Other speakers Thursday included Olympic champion hurdler Edwin Moses and U.S. Anti-Doping Agency CEO Travis Tygart, who believe gene doping should be banned, worry what it could do to athletes — and agree someone is likely to try eventually.
“How do you feel if it’s your son or your daughter who wants to be an Olympian? Would you let your kid or your grandchild take what they have to take? Or do what they have to do?” Moses asked.
On the other hand, he acknowledged there are those who will.
“If you have experts saying it’s realistic to turn on pieces of your metabolism and it becomes feasible for the athletes to do something without killing themselves and it’s not tremendously expensive, someone is going to try it,” said Moses, who won gold medals in 1976 and 1984 in the 400-meter hurdles. “There will be someone who can convince an athlete they can get away with it.”
For his part, Tygart believes “that risk is several years away,” he said. “And even if it comes, there would be the ability to detect it through the testing process.”
There were others present who were not so sure about either of those assessments.
John Leonard, executive director of the American Swimming Coaches Association, told of conversations he has had with coaches and scientists in China.
“We are really naive if we are to believe that the Chinese at this point are clean or that they are the only country in the world that is experimenting with genetic enhancement as we speak,” said Leonard, who was not a panelist but attended the conference and spoke during question-and-answer periods.
“There are lots of countries in the world who couldn’t care less about doing it safely, and there are lots of athletes who will take the chance that they will die in order to win medals. … Will the United States have the same viewpoint when we start losing gold medals?”
Theodore Friedmann, a professor at the University of California, San Diego, researches human gene therapy and spoke about the risks.
“People are injured. People die,” he said. “It should be reserved for treatment of people with serious diseases.”
He said he doesn’t know whether there are athletes attempting gene doping.
“Nobody knows,” he said, before adding: “It wouldn’t surprise me.”
About one thing Friedmann left no doubt, however: Unlike Miah, he thinks the practice has no place in sports.
“The anti-doping world accepts the notion that rules matter and, in fact, it reflects the wish of most athletes,” Friedmann said. “The world of pro-doping is the contrary of all that.”

European sport ministers discuss ethics, gene doping
Published: Friday 19 December 2008
Ministers and other stakeholders acknowledge that there are corruption, match-fixing and illegal betting problems in sport and have asked the Council of Europe to tackle these and other emerging ethical challenges in sport, such as gene doping.
Sport representatives gathered for a Council of Europe conference on 12 December, adopted a package of three resolutions, including measures to address sports ethics.

The ministers “acknowledge that there is a problem of corruption, match fixing and illegal betting in sport and invite sports organisations to investigate the situation and, where appropriate, identify the problems”.

The Council of Europe is invited to draw up a draft recommendation which could form the basis of a new convention on these issues and help increase integrity controls.

In particular, the ministers ask the Council of Europe to address emerging challenges such as genetic engineering in sport.

Doping refers to the use of performance-enhancing drugs, which is forbidden by organisations that regulate sport competitions. It is widely seen as unethical by most international sports organisations as it damages health and undermines the equality of opportunity of athletes.

A major new ethical challenge in the fight against doping is the use of genetic engineering, declares the resolution.

Gene doping can enhance athletic performance without being detected in blood and urine tests. The issue is currently being addressed in bioethical debates about human enhancement.
“One of our main priorities should be well prepared to react quickly to new ethical challenges,” agreed Birgitta Kervinen, president of the European Non-Governmental Sports Organisation (ENGSO).

The resolution on pan-European sport cooperation invites the Council of Europe to consider ways of increasing its cooperation with the European Union.

“I believe that it is the clear interest of EU members and non-members alike to avoid any developments which would introduce duplication and weaken pan-European arrangements for a better and healthier sport across the continent and beyond,” said Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, deputy secretary-general of the Council of Europe.

The resolution on autonomy and sport reflects concerns that stakeholders have over the growing commercialisation of sport and the effects it has on the autonomy of sports movements.

Couch-Potato Drugs Are WADA’s First Banned for Gene-Doping Ties

By Mason Levinson
Jan. 14 (Bloomberg) — Two drugs that activate genetic switches, fooling the body into believing it has exercised, are the first to be added to the Olympic sports prohibited list for their ties to gene doping.
The drugs, whose effects were first disclosed in a report published online by the journal Cell on July 31, were added to the nine-page list issued by the World Anti-Doping Agency under the “Gene Doping” classification as of Jan. 1.
It’s a category that is likely to grow over the next five to 10 years, said Dr.Gary Wadler , who heads WADA’s Prohibited List Committee, as gene therapy becomes “part of the matrix of what physicians have to treat patients.”
“There’s gene-therapy stuff going on in research labs everywhere in the world,” Wadler said in an interview at his Manhasset, New York, office. “I think they’re going to cause breakthroughs, and those breakthroughs, if they have any application to enhance athletic performance, then you’ll ultimately see it banned.”
One of the drugs is a synthetic protein called Aicar that, when given to mice, improved endurance by 44 percent after four weeks, even without exercise. The other is an experimental medicine made by GlaxoSmithKline Plc , GW1516, which remodeled the mice’s skeletal muscle and raised their endurance levels by 75 percent when the animals also ran on a treadmill.
WADA ’s 2009 prohibited list includes nearly 70 anabolic steroids; about 60 stimulants; hormones; diuretics and other masking agents; blood-doping methods; and several narcotics. The Montreal-based agency oversees anti-drug programs for Olympic- level sports.
2002 Prediction
Wadler said he “predicted the future” when in 2002 he wrote a chapter on emerging science and technologies for the textbook “Performance Enhancing Substances in Sport and Exercise.” In it, he discussed the implications of the U.S. Human Genome Project, which was launched in 1990, and examined gene transfer therapy.
“The dissection of the human genetic code not only opened a Pandora’s box of diagnostic tools and methods; it has significantly paved the way for an array of therapeutic interventions never conceived before and has spawned the field of pharmacogenetics,” he wrote at the time.
WADA held a gene-doping workshop for scientists, ethicists, athletes and representatives from the Olympic movement in March 2002 and again in December 2005 and June 2008. It formed its expert panel on gene doping in 2004.
‘Couch Potato’
Last July, a news release , titled “Exercise in a Pill,” announced the results of the study by the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego that detailed the effects of Aicar, which it called the “ultimate couch-potato experiment,” as well as the effects of GW1516.
The findings may lead to the development of obesity and muscle-wasting-disease treatments, and has implications for the treatment of diabetes and lipid disorders.
By activating different genetic switches with the two drugs, the scientists were able to increase fat burning and the mice showed major transformation of skeletal muscle fibers. In giving the mice GW1516 and a regular exercise regimen, for example, they saw a 38 percent increase in “slow twitch” muscle fibers, which relate to a muscle’s endurance.
“They have the capacity of changing the patterns of gene expression in cells and tissues, so our view is that that’s a form of gene manipulation,” Theodore Friedmann , chairman of WADA’s Gene Doping Panel, said in a telephone interview. “I don’t think that list is going to shrink. It’s probably going to increase markedly over the years.”
Test Procedures
Ronald Evans , who is a professor in the Salk Institute’s Gene Expression Laboratory and led the research into the use of Aicar and GW1516 to manipulate signaling pathways, also developed a test to readily detect the drugs in blood and urine, and is working with WADA to enact its implementation.
While these drugs can be easily detected, other gene- therapy methods are much more problematic for WADA, and in turn sports associations and leagues. These involve the use of genetic techniques to bring doping substances to muscle tissue and other targets without passing through blood and urine, thereby confounding testing efforts.
“It’s better for patients, but it also makes it more challenging because of doping,” Wadler said.
Friedmann, who runs a gene-therapy laboratory at the University of California, San Diego, said WADA has mounted a major research program to develop ways to find evidence of gene manipulation.
Drug’s Effect
“WADA is very forward-looking into designing new forms of doping detection based on the new principle that you don’t look for the drug itself, you look for the effect of the drug,” said Friedmann.
In February, the committee will begin reviewing the 2009 list, assessing research and what they’ve learned about doping through everything from medical journals to police investigations. They’ll then tweak the list and turn it over to WADA’s Executive Committee for final approval Oct. 1, giving sports organizations three months to adopt new regulations and understand the changes.
To contact the reporter on this story: Mason Levinson in New York atmlevinson@bloomberg.net .

The World’s First GM Human Embryo Could Dramatically Alter the Future
“The advance of genetic engineering makes it quite conceivable that we will begin to design our own evolutionary progress.”
~Isaac Asimov, famous thinker and sci-fi writer
Cornell University researchers in New York revealed that they had produced what is believed to be the world’s first genetically altered human embryo—an ironic twist considering all the criticism the US has heaped on South Korea over the past several years for going “too far” with its genetic research programs. The Cornell team, led by Nikica Zaninovic, used a virus to add a green fluorescent protein gene, to a human embryo left over from an in vitro fertilization procedure. The research was presented at a meeting of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine last year, but details have emerged only after new controversy has emerged over the ethics and science of genetically modifying humans.
Zaninovic has pointed out that in order to be sure that the new gene had been inserted and the embryo had been genetically modified, scientists would ideally want to keep growing the embryo and carry out further tests. However, the Cornell team did not get permission to keep the embryo alive. The GM embryos created could theoretically have become the world’s first genetically altered man or woman, but it was destroyed after five days.
British regulators form the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA), have warned that such controversial experiments cause “large ethical and public interest issues”.
Much of the debate stems from the fact that the effects of genetically altering an embryo would be generational and permanent. In other words, if we create a mutant baby and it grows up to have children of it’s own—they’ll all be mutant gene carriers too. Genes injected into embryos and reproductive cells, such as sperm, affect every cells in the body and would be passed on to future generations. Critics say current humans don’t have the right to tamper with the gene pool of future generations.
On the other hand, proponents of such technology say that this science could potentially erase diseases such as cystic fibrosis, hemophilia and even cancer. In theory, any “good” gene could be added to embryos to offset any “bad” genes they are currently carrying. That could potentially mean the difference between life and death for many children.
John Harris, the Sir David Alliance Professor of Bioethics at Manchester University, takes it a step further. He believes that as parents, citizens, and scientists, we are morally obliged to do whatever we can genetically to make life better and longer for our children and ourselves. Society currently devotes so much energy and resources towards saving lives, which, in reality, is simply postponing death, he notes. If it is right to save life, Harris reasons, then it should also be right to postpone death by stemming the flow of diseases that carry us to the grave.
For Harris, having the ability to improve our species lot in life but refusing to do so, makes little sense. He has a difficult time understanding why some people are so insistent that we shouldn’t try to improve upon human evolution.
“Can you imagine our ape ancestors getting together and saying, ‘this is pretty good, guys. Let’s stop it right here!’. That’s the equivalent of what people say today.”
Ethicists, however, warn that genetically modifying embryos will lead to designer babies preloaded with socially desirable traits involving height, intelligence and coloring.
Dr David King, director of Human Genetics Alert, warns, “This is the first step on the road that will lead to the nightmare of designer babies and a new eugenics.”
Harris, however, doesn’t support that argument. He says it’s not about “beauty” it’s about health, and what parent wouldn’t want a healthy child, he asks.
“Certainly, sometimes we want competitive advantage [for our children], but for the enhancements I talk about, the competitive advantage is not the prime motive. I didn’t give my son a good diet in the hope that others eat a bad diet and die prematurely. I’m happy if everyone has a good diet. The moral imperative should be that enhancements are generally available because they are good for everyone.”
The only other route to equality, he says, is to level down so that everyone is as uneducated, unhealthy and unenhanced as the lowest in society – which would be much more unethical in his opinion. Even though we can’t offer a liver transplant to all who need them, he says, we still carry them out for the lucky few. “Much better to try to raise the baseline, even if some are left behind.”
The Human Fertilization and Embryology Bill in currently under consideration in Britain will likely make it legal to create GM embryos in that country, but only for research—implantation in the womb will still be banned—at least for now. However, ethicists believe that the legislation could easily be relaxed even further in the future.
People who believe that genetically modified humans is something way into the future might want to consider that many experts are worried that some forms of it are already happening in the sports world.
Faster, bigger, better, stronger—in theory, the single most effective way to radically alter your physical capacities is to manipulate your genes. Athletes are beginning to take notice. Now that we’ve mapped out the human genome and identified exactly which genes make you buff, tough and rough—experts are concerned about the future of genetic doping.
Gene doping could spawn athletes capable of out-running, out-jumping and out-cycling even the world’s greatest champions. However, researchers at the University of Florida are attempting to prevent that from happening by detecting the first cases of gene doping in professional athletes before the practice becomes mainstream.
Montreal-based World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), responsible for monitoring the conduct of athletes, is working with investigators around the globe to develop testing to identify competitors who have injected themselves with genetic material that is capable of enhancing muscle mass or heightening endurance.
“If an athlete injects himself in the muscle with DNA, would we be able to detect that?” asked one of France’s leading gene therapy researchers, Philippe Moullier, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Gene Therapy Laboratory at the Universite de Nantes in France.
Right now, he says the answer is clearly “no”. But that may soon change. The UF scientists are among several groups collaborating with national and global anti-doping organizations to develop a test that can detect evidence of “doped” DNA.
“WADA has had a research program in place for some years now, to try to develop tests for gene-based doping,” said Theodore Friedmann, M.D., head of the agency’s panel on genetic doping and director of the gene therapy program at the University of California, San Diego.
Nearly every day now we are inundated with new genetic discoveries. Scientists can now pinpoint many specific genes including being lean, living a long life, improved self-healing, thrill seeking behavior, and having an improved memory among many other incredible traits. Many believe that these genes can be manipulated in ordinary humans, in effect creating Super-Mutants.
Theoretically, options are nearly limitless. Even a gene that exists in another species could be brought over to a human cell. Imagine some of the incredible traits of the animal kingdom that some humans don’t possess such as night vision, amazing agility, or the ability to breath underwater. The precedence for these types of radical changes is already in place. Experimental mice, for example, were successfully given the human ability to see in color. If animals can be engineered to have human traits, then humans can certainly be mutated to have desirable animal traits.
It is even thought possible to so drastically alter human genomes that a type of superhuman species could emerge. The fear with germline engineering is that since it is inheritable, offspring and all succeeding generations would carry the modified traits. This is one reason why this type of engineering is currently banned- it could lead to irreversible alteration of the entire human species.
Ethics, not scientific limitations, is the real brick wall. Most scientists believe manipulating genes in order to make an individual healthy is a noble and worthwhile pursuit. Some are against even that notion, arguing that historically amazing individuals have sometimes been plagued by genetic mental and physical disorders, which inadvertently shaped the greatness of their lives. Should we rob the human race of character shaping frailty? Very few scientists would dare to publicly endorse the idea of using genetic engineering to make a normal, healthy individuals somehow superior to the rest of the human race.
“The push to redesign human beings, animals and plants to meet the commercial goals of a limited number of individuals is fundamentally at odds with the principle of respect for nature,”
said Brent Blackwelder, President of Friends of the Earth in his testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee.
However, would it be so bad if the human race were slightly improved? What if a relatively simple procedure could make an individual and his or her offspring resistant to cancer? After all, Nature isn’t always right. Nature has naturally selected many people to carry the burden of uncomfortable and often lethal genetic disorders. If nature knows best, then shouldn’t we quit trying to “improve” upon nature by “curing” people of genetic conditions we consider inferior? Many say we shouldn’t change human genetics, UNLESS it’s the RIGHT thing to do. Who gets to decide where the line is between righteous endeavor and the corruption of nature? These are the questions facing our generation.
Posted by Rebecca Sato
Related Galaxy posts:
Can Humans Live to 1,000? Some Experts Claim We Can — Others Want to Prevent That
The “Mickey Mouse” Experiment -Mice with Human Eyes
Enhancing Evolution: Do Humans have a Moral and Ethical Duty to Improve the Human Race?
Are We Close to Creating Super-Mutant Humans?
The Story of a Biologist & the Extension of the Human Life Span
Scientists Bio-engineer a Virus that Destroys Cancer Cells
“Mind Children”: Transhumanism & the Search For Genetic Perfection
Sources & Related Stories:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=000E7ACE-5686-10CF-94EB83414B7F0000
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article3908516.ece
http://www.andhranews.net/Health/2008/May/11-Scientists-create-first-44379.asp
http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8480.html

German lab develops test for gene doping

BERLIN, March 20 (Reuters) – A German research laboratory said on Friday it had successfully developed a test for gene doping, tracing a substance that increases muscle tissue and boosts endurance levels.
Gene doping, the practice of using genetic engineering to artificially enhance athletic performance, is seen as the next major drugs threat to sport as doping becomes more sophisticated.
“For the first time a substance for gene doping has been traced through mass spectrometry,” the German Sports University Cologne (DSHS) said of the procedure.
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) said it had been informed about the test which it said fined-tuned existing procedures to test for the substance.
“This is good news and what you would expect from a WADA-accredited lab,” WADA Science Director Olivier Rabin told Reuters.
“When we added this substance, GW1516, to the list of banned substances it was clear those substances were detectable. What Cologne did is to improve the method of detection.”
GW1516, traced by scientists at the DSHS’s centre for preventive doping research, had already been placed on WADA’s 2009 banned substances list.
“The GW1516 increases the volume of so-called endurance muscles as well as enzymes to gain energy from fat. In sport this substance could be abused to increase stamina,” the DSHS said on its website (www.dshs-koeln.de).
“This shows that the general statement that gene doping testing is still far away and that it can only be achieved through costly research must be revised,” it said.
The International Olympic Committee and WADA have boosted their fight against doping, sharply increasing the number of tests at last year’s Beijing Olympics and reviewing their anti-doping code that now also targets the athletes’ entourage.
The German capital Berlin will host this year’s world athletics championships in August. (Writing by Karolos Grohmann, eiting by Rex Gowar)