HERE are three reasons why the sports world is so frightened of the grim new world of illegal performance-enhancement better known as “gene doping”. First, the science involved is not particularly advanced and, second, the equipment required to produce gene therapies does not have to be particularly advanced, either.
We are not talking state-of-the-art laboratories, designer equipment or egg-heads in lab coats making advances unknown to man. We are talking half-decent molecular biologists and a useful bit of DIY.
Third, those who toy with gene doping to gain an illegal advantage do so at the risk of their lives. And this is not scaremongering. The fact is that, despite decades of research, only one gene therapy, in China, has been approved beyond the trial stage for use by the healthcare market.
In 2000, gene therapy trials were carried out in Paris on a number of young children who suffered from severely deficient immunity systems and two developed leukaemia as a result.
The whole science then went backwards, yet gene doping is suddenly upon the globe as a form of cheating in sport. This is known because of a court case in Germany in which e-mails between two coaches revealed knowledge and use of Repoxygen, a gene therapy. “Repoxygen is hard to get,” one coach wrote to the other. “Please give me new instructions soon so that I can order the product before Christmas.”
Repoxygen is a substance that was never produced commercially, never getting beyond prototype stage. The testing for it never went beyond (successful) trials on mice. Yet it has found its way into sport. And no one will know if it finds its way into the Winter Olympics, which open tomorrow, because no one can yet test for it.
If this is a chilling example of the cheats getting ahead of the doping police, an eloquent response is being developed in Britain, in a village outside Newmarket. HFL is a commercial laboratory, one of the two in the UK accredited to perform dope tests, and it is funded by the World AntiDoping Agency to research gene therapy and to work out how to catch the new generation of cheats.
HFL, it seems, is on the scent. But this, first, is how easy it is for the cheats to get ahead. “It’s a relatively straightforward technology,” Phil Teale, HFL’s head of research, said. “Gene implantation materials could be made by a PhD in molecular biology in a university laboratory. That’s very standard equipment and you’re not talking about a team of 40 people to help. This is why the anti-doping movement is particularly worried.”
These, furthermore, are the risks. “You could make a gene implantation system, but you really wouldn’t know the health threats,” Teale said.
Steve Maynard, the director of drug surveillance, said: “Sadly, we do know that individuals will go to extreme lengths to gain an advantage. And the point is that people in sport are very aware of the advances in medicine and are prepared to take big health risks to make use of them.”
The Schwarzenegger mice, for example. These are large rodents, famous within the science, created by Dr Lee Sweeney of the University of Pennsylvania with the introduction of a gene that stimulates muscle growth. Similar mice have been engineered at the Salk Institute in California, where there is a mouse called Lance (as in Armstrong), whose genetic make-up was altered to produce high levels of endurance muscle. Lance can run for twice as long on a treadmill as normal mice.
The temptations are obvious to the ethically challenged corners of sport. However, there are pitfalls. In producing extra muscle in this way, the body’s other organs do not grow simultaneously, so they struggle to cope. At best, we would be engineering something more dangerous than acromegaly, or “gigantism”, a pituitary problem suffered by the likes of Richard Kiel (Jaws in the Bond movies) and Carel Struycken (Lurch in the Addams Family films).
These are big men with health issues, yet more healthy than the Schwarzenegger mice, whose skeletons did not grow in proportion with their muscle and had shorter lifespans.
This explains why such gene therapy has yet to be used in healthcare. However, it did not stop the laboratories in California and Pennsylvania receiving a large number of communications from the sports world. Offers to be their human guinea pigs were common. Sweeney had a high-school American football coach offering his entire team.
“This is a huge leap of faith,” Maynard said. “Here is a therapy being developed, it is in clinical trial, has many unpleasant side-effects and is considered too dangerous to be considered legitimate therapy. Yet that doesn’t stop people in sport speculating that it might be useful.”
Teale said: “Everything we’ve seen shows that when anything comes on to the market, people abuse it.”
Here is what HFL plans to do about it. The Eureka moment came for Teale in the lab in November. “Your body is permanently trying to keep things in balance,” he said. “If you change that balance through genetic manipulation, other proteins are increased or decreased to try to get the body back into stasis.”
It was in November, when comparing one post-gene manipulation blood sample to a clean one, that he discovered a way of differentiating. “That was a pretty good moment,” he said.
Maynard said: “There is a very big prize here. Not only may we have a solution to gene doping, we might get a solution to many others. If people are taking other unknown substances, that will also alter the body’s natural chemistry and we will pick that up, too. It’s potentially very exciting. This is genuine groundbreaking research.”
The prize, then, is a test that may expose every doper, whatever they are taking. It sounds magnificent and sounds as if it is needed immediately.
Which takes us to the race: the dopers versus HFL. HFL hopes to be over the finish line before the Beijing Olympics in 2008, but says that 2012 is a safer bet. Until then, the gene dopers are playing a very dangerous game.
- HFL’s research is being carried out in collaboration with Nottingham Trent University and Royal Free and UCL Medical School
HIGHS, LOWS AND DANGERS WHY WOULD-BE DOPERS NEED TO BE NIPPED IN THE BUD
WHAT IS GENE DOPING?
Traditional doping involves taking a chemical substance to improve performance. Gene doping is the science of implanting genetic material into the body’s cells that encourages them to manufacture the same type of substances in situ. It is brilliant because it has the appearance of being natural. And depending on how it is done, its effect could last for an athlete’s entire career.
FOUR POSSIBILITIES FOR GENE DOPERS
- Growth hormone therapy
How it works: Genes produce growth hormone, which produces muscle. What is in it for healthcare? Can be used to combat wasting diseases such as muscular dystrophy.
What is in it for sports dopers? Dopers have long been after the benefits of synthetic growth hormone: extra muscle to deliver bulk, power, speed.
And why that would be mad: Bone structure and internal organs would not increase simultaneously and therefore could not cope, leading to anything from skeletal damage to kidney failure and heart attacks. Tests on mice showed decreased lifespan.
- Erythropoietin (EPO) therapy
How it works: The body produces EPO naturally, which in turn encourages production of red blood cells that carry oxygen around the body. This therapy can stimulate further EPO production. What is in it for healthcare? Treatment of anaemia, which is red blood cell deficiency.
What is in it for sports dopers? When an athlete’s body is tiring, it is because it craves oxygen. More oxygen helps endurance.
And why that would be mad: Because EPO thickens the blood, which can cause heart attacks.
- Myostatin blocking
How it works: Myostatin is the body’s regulator of muscle growth. A gene that blocks myostatin production would encourage extra muscle growth. What is in it for healthcare? Myostatin levels are increased in muscle wasting diseases. Blocking myostatin could be the cure.
What is in it for sports dopers? Extra muscle delivers bulk, power, speed.
And why that would be mad: As with growth hormone therapy, bone structure and internal organs would not increase simultaneously.
- Endorphin therapy
How it works: Endorphins are naturally produced. They resemble opiates in producing a sense of wellbeing, working as natural painkillers. What is in it for healthcare? Gene therapy that produces extra endorphins would help patients to manage pain.
What is in it for sports dopers? Endorphins create the so-called “runner’s high”. Extra endorphins would help endurance athletes to hurdle the pain barrier.
And why that would be mad: The registering of pain is the body’s shout for help. Leprosy is a disease in which the pain receptors do not work. Athletes ignoring pain risk anything from wear-and-tear injuries to heart attacks.
