Is gene doping a reality?

Why We Should Fight Gene Doping


Gene therapy is a superb scientific advancement and could be a blessing to those suffering from genetic disorder or untreatable diseases. But it could lead to gene doping, which can ride piggyback on its exploits to create super athletes. We need to prevent gene doping even before it takes off.



It is good to live in a world without disease or sickness. Or in a world where you can go to a doctor and be cured of many illnesses caused by genetic disorder with just one shot.

It is good, indeed. Thanks to the latest technology of gene therapy, which manipulates the human genome to prevent or cure diseases.

Gene therapy is so fast advancing that in the not-too-remote future we may not worry about some of the terrible diseases that have blighted us.

No Parkinson’s Disease. No cystic fibrosis. No muscular dystrophy. Sounds good, doesn’t it?

But there is a flip side to it.

Imagine, records are being rewritten left, right and centre at Beijing Olympics 2008 as a clutch of athletes defies all logic to clock some astonishing timings. The anti-doping agency has no clue to what has made these men and women ‘super-athletes’. All conventional dope tests show negative.

What is the matter?

Yes, it could be the arrival of super-athletes – the next-generation cheats.

Gene therapy which looks a blessing to get rid of genetic disorders and some deadly diseases can lead to gene doping to create these super-athletes.

Gene doping is the next step for an athlete who now uses erythropoietin (EPO) to enhance performance. Instead of injecting themselves with the EPO, they would inject with the gene that produces the EPO, allowing the body to naturally produce more red blood cells.

If gene doping can be a reality, there is no doubt that the cheats who now use the conventional methods to enhance performance will approach some unscrupulous scientists. For some of them the temptation to become faster, stronger and subsequently richer and more famous through tinkering with their genes will be too strong to resist.

But those who care about integrity and fair play in sport don’t have to worry. Someone is keeping a track of gene therapy advancement and its potential lead to gene doping. World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the Montreal-headquartered global body to fight against doping in sport, has vowed to do all it can to fight the next-generation cheats.

In 2002, WADA brought together leaders in sport and science for a conference at the Banbury Centre on Long Island. The aim of the conference was to place gene doping on the map.

In an exchange of knowledge and ideas, those in sport learned how far science has advanced in gene therapy and the scientists realised how far some athletes will go to be the best. To their shock, they heard from their colleagues who had already had calls from coaches and trainers to know how gene therapy can be used to enhance the performance of their wards.

Here is the danger. Gene therapy could be good news, but human greed can ride piggyback on its exploits.

Richard W Pound, chairman of WADA, says: “It (Banbury conference) was an eye-opening event for all of us, and led to the inclusion of gene doping as a prohibited method on the 2003 Prohibited List of Substances and Methods…Some disreputable labs would be willing to replicate the technology for performance enhancement – for the right price. As dangerous and wrong as traditional doping is, it is hard to conceive what the consequences could be of altering a person’s genetic makeup just to make him better in sports. This is a slippery slope we do not ever want to go down.”

However, gene therapy and gene doping are not as simple as they sound. It involves a profound technology. According to Dr Theodore Friedmann, director of gene therapy programme at the University of California, San Diego, and a foremost expert in genetic research, it is extremely difficult to transfer the underlying basic scientific technology into human beings, whether they be sick people or athletes.

“For humans, gene therapy remains very immature, experimental and highly risky. In the US, thousands of patients have been enrolled in clinical trials in the last decade and most of these studies have not shown any striking therapeutic benefit to patients. In fact, some serious adverse events, including deaths, have occurred. The bottom line is that everything gets complicated when you move from the laboratory into a human being. We don’t have the technology yet in hand to ensure a predictable and adequate level of safety to feel comfortable to using gene transfer technology in anyone other than in a patient with a serious or untreatable disease,” he says.

What Is Gene Therapy?

Before we go deeper into the clinical and moral implications of gene doping, let’s understand what gene therapy is all about.

We are, mostly, what our genes are. From the way we look to how good we are at athletics or studies, to what disease we might develop depend largely on our genes. Most of our predominant traits are determined by our genes, with a minor contribution from our environment.

Genes, which are composed of segments of our DNA, are the instruction sheets for the proteins they produce. It is these proteins that build our cells and instruct them how to function.

When a particular gene is missing or defective either through inheritance or by exposure to chemical products or radiation, production of proteins is affected and the result is disease.

Scientists are studying ways in which gene therapy can work.

A normal gene may be inserted into cells of patients or directly into the patient’s genome to replace or repair a gene that does not work properly. When inserting a new, normal gene, scientists use a gene transport method, known as vector, to deliver the gene into the genome. The most common way is to use a disable virus that has been altered to not be harmful in itself but just to act as a moving van to deliver normal DNA to the cell.

Dr Friedmann, who also chairs WADA’s panel on gene doping, adds: “The viruses are like Trojan horses. They carry the genes into the targeted cells and unload the normal genes, which can then begin to function and produce the necessary proteins and enzymes.”

Though it may sound a simple as loading and unloading some stuff, it is an extremely difficult process, with no evidence of therapeutic effect in many hundreds of attempts.

Is Gene Doping A Reality?

The question is, if gene therapy itself is such a complicated and high-end technology with little scope, as of yet, of success, why should we lose sleep over gene doping?

The answer is, it could be a reality, especially when we consider the rate at which science is advancing in this field.

Mr Pound in one of his editorials in WADA’s official magazine Play true writes: “As the Olympic Games in Athens wrapped up last summer, I was frequently asked one question by journalists who were already thinking ahead to the Beijing Games: Could there be genetic doping by 2008? The idea that genetically-altered athletes could be competing at the Olympics in Beijing is disturbing but not out of the realm of possibility.”

Dr Oliver Rabin, WADA’s science director, says: “Most doping is the misuse and abuse of medicines normally used for therapeutic purposes. Many of the substances used for doping actually represent great steps forward in the fields of science and medicine. But they are being wrongly used to enhance athletic performance. The same may become true of gene doping.”

Mr Pound adds: “We know the threat of gene doping is very real. We need to start fighting this now, before it becomes a reality. It is easier to prevent a problem than it is to solve it.”

However, Dr Friedmann says there is no proof that gene doping has happened. “We don’t know for sure. We have no proof that it has happened, but we think it is likely to happen.”

He however says that gene doping won’t replace traditional drug doping because gene-based approaches will be more difficult. “But as technology advances, there will be those with means and motivation who will be willing to try.”

However, Thomas H Murray, president of The Hastings Centre and a bioethics expert, argues that gene doping is not an imminent threat to sport, but “it has the potential to dramatically affect the Olympic Games many years hence unless steps are taken now.”

That is the threat. We cannot rein in man’s craving for fame and money. It is his lust and pride that drive him to many unethical acts. And, that’s the danger. Experts have already predicted that rogue labs will pop up, in the US and around the world, which will be ready to experiment with gene doping, and will make the “facility” available to athletes, no matter how dangerous it could be, for the right price.

Dr Friedmann is worried that these unregulated laboratories will not be concerned about safety and, sadly, not about informed consent from athletes.

In that case, can genetically-altered athletes be detected? Is it possible to make out whether an athlete has a “foreign gene”? After all, when a gene is inserted into the body, it becomes part of the genome. It should be giving the athlete and his accomplices a sense of security.

But WADA’s director general Mr David Howman says it is a false security. “Those who think they can cheat using gene transfer technology will be in for a rude surprise.” He underlines that it is the priority for “WADA and our partners to make sure gene doping is as detectable as any form of traditional doping.”

The agency is funding five projects in different parts of the world. They are:

 Manipulation of muscle mass via the growth hormone (GH)/insulin-like growth factor (GF-1) axis (UK)
 Application of microarray technology for the detection of changes in gene expression after doping with recombinant human growth hormone (hGH) (Austria)
 Microarray detection methods for growth hormone and insulin-like IGF-1 (USA)
 IMAGENE: non-invasive molecular imaging of gene expression useful for doping control, pilot study in animals after erythropoietin gene transfer. (Spain)
 The application of cellular chemistry and proteomic approaches to the detection of gene doping (UK)

These projects will help scientists detect the effects of a new or foreign gene in an athlete’s body. Researchers are looking at ways in which changes to the genome can be detected through blood testing. Another unique idea being looked at is imaging, where a process similar to magnetic resonance imaging would be used to scan the body and search for unusual location of gene expression.

So, the super cheats cannot be complacent after all. Dr Friedmann is aggressive in his warning to the potential frauds. “I would like to send a shot across the bow of those who think we will not be able to detect gene doping. My advice to them is: Don’t be so sure – this is a very dangerous road to proceed on, and we will be ready to halt the traffic.”

- With inputs from Play true article on gene doping.
(Cover story, Sports Today, January 2006)