Topic: News: Weightlifter Paul Doherty suspended for positive test

[Jim Storch]

"...why do people need to supplement a good..." job, "when any benefits can be gained in general..." hard physical labor?

[John Way]

ITS AMAZING NOT HOW MANY OF OUR SWIMMERS ARE ASMATICS

I HAVE A CLIP OF TOM PLATZ IN AUSTRALIA IN 1985 STATING HE LEARNED OF STEROIDS FROM SWIMMERS, BUT CAUSE ITS OUR NO1 FUNDED SPORT NO ONE CARES

ALSO ONE OF GOLDEN GIRLS JANE FLEMING HEPTAHLON GOLD IN 1990 COMM GAMES ADMITTED TO A URINE SWAP (1986) ON BEHALF OF SUE HOWLAND , AGAIN IT A CASE OF TUNNEL VISION 4 THE PUBLIC

[AlekoKouva]

im scared of gene doping...

[Pete_Stewart]

In my opinion the introduction of gene doping in sport is still a long way down the line unless the athlete is willing to accept what are extremely real risks: 

1. There has to be an efficient and safe way of getting the gene into the correct cell type.  This would probably require a viral mediated delivery and a tissue specific promoter to prevent protein expression in wrong cell type.

2. When in the cell the gene has to be incorporated into the genome in a 'safe' place.  Some gene therapy trials have led to malignancy due to the promoter being placed upstream of oncogenes resulting in activation of genes resulting in leukemias in one particular trial.

3. I suspect in the future it will be possible to also detect gene doping although it is a more laborious process.  Although expressing the same protein (amino acid sequence) there may well be differences in the DNA and mRNA sequences compared to the endogenous gene.