German lab develops test for gene doping (2009, March 20)

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)

A Short Stay in Switzerland (2009)

Great new TV film from the BBC starring Julie Walters, dealing with the real life case of Dr Anne Turner, who sought the services of DIGNITAS in Swizterland to end her life,. The whole film is on You Tube just now, but here’s a trailer:

Aimee Mullins at MIT H2.0 symposium (Oct, 2007)

The Liverpool Summit (1-2 October, 2008)

Two-Day International Management Summit

BT Convention Centre Liverpool

Wednesday 1st and Thursday 2nd October 2008

http://www.theliverpoolsummit.com/?gclid=CI2jw4eHkpICFQOc1AodqRfx_Q

On the 1st and 2nd October 2008 Benchmark for Business will present “Transforming the Future”, an international management “Summit” to be staged at the BT Convention Centre as the central business event of the city’s Capital of Culture Year, 2008.

By presenting the UK and international markets with a world-class line up of speakers who are recognised as the leading thinkers in their respective fields, this exceptional management-focused conference will deliver a lasting legacy for Liverpool.

Across two days, in excess of 1,000 leaders and senior executives will hear inspiring presentations from thinkers of international renown, drawn from Benchmark’s “stable” of strategic thinkers, international leaders and top flight CEOs – perhaps the highest calibre of speakers to appear on the same platform at any UK management conference in 2008. The Summit agenda will include a full 2-day programme of keynote addresses from figures at the forefront of new thinking on the issues that matter for leaders.

Speakers

Michael Porter
Sir Terry Leahy
Chris Patten
Clayton Christensen
Renée Mauborgne
Will Hutton
Kofi Annan

Benefits of genetic research in sport (Miah, 2007)

Benefits of genetic research in sport
Submitted by harminka on Fri, 2007-09-14 13:29.
Posted under:
<http://www.huliq.com/tags/sport>
Genetic research into athletic ability should be encouraged for its potential benefits in both sport and public health, a leading group of scientists meeting at the University of Bath said today.

However, ethical concerns, such as whether seeking information about differences between ethnic groups could be perceived as racist research, need to be properly addressed, they warn.

Their recommendations are published in a ‘position stand’ on genetic research and testing launched at the British Association of Sport & Exercise Sciences annual meeting today.

They call for more genetic research in the sport and exercise sciences because of the anticipated benefits for public health, but want 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.

“We, as scientists investigating genetics, acknowledge a public concern about some genetic research and we believe scientists need to engage in public in debates about the potential benefits of their research.

“Research into the athletic success of East African distance runners or sprinters of West African ancestry might be perceived as unethical.

“But understanding the limits of human exercise capacity in sport could lead to the development of treatments for a range of diseases like cancer and cardiovascular disease.”

The potential applications of genetic testing in sport and exercise also raise some ethical concerns, for example in identifying potential athletic ability before birth.

An Australian company already offers the first genetic performance test (for the ACTN3 gene) which has been linked to sprint and power performance.

The report authors are sceptical about whether this test is useful but anticipate that more advanced versions of these tests will be available in future.

“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 Dr Williams, who wrote the report with Drs Henning Wackerhage (Aberdeen University), Andy Miah (University of Paisley), Roger Harris (University of Chichester) and Hugh Montgomery (University College London).

They highlight two dangers of genetic performance tests. Firstly, genetic performance tests might later be linked to disease. For example, a muscle growth gene may later be linked to cancer growth.

“Not all people may want to know, while young that they are at increased risk of cancer by early middle age, but they might inadvertently become aware of that just because they had a ‘sport gene’ test,” said Dr Williams.

Secondly, genetic performance tests can be performed even before birth and this may lead to the selection of foetuses or to abortions based on athletic potential.

The report recommends genetic counselling and that the testing should be confined to mature individuals who fully understand the relevant issues.

Genetic tests might also be used to screen for health risks during sport such as genes that are linked to sudden cardiac death.

Genetic tests for sudden cardiac death are already available but the report recommends that such testing should not be enforced on athletes.

Problems with mandatory testing are highlighted by the case of the basketball player Eddy Curry, who had an irregular heart beat.

Curry was asked by his club, the Chicago Bulls, to perform a predictive genetic test for a heart condition. The athlete refused and was traded to the New York Knicks who did not make such a demand.

In future, genetic tests might be used to identify those that respond with the biggest drop in cholesterol, blood pressure or glucose to exercise.

In a personalised medicine approach, such tests could be used to select subjects for therapeutic exercise programmes but scientists are concerned that this might undermine the ‘exercise for all’ message that already seems difficult to get across to the public.

The authors say that genetic testing might also be used to detect gene doping, which may be a real threat by the time of the London Olympics in 2012, or to show that positive doping tests are the result of a genetic mutation in an athlete.

The report recommends that genetic testing should be used for anti-doping testing as long as the genetic samples are destroyed after testing.-University of Bath

Cloning Racehorses (2007, June 6)

Genetics don’t guarantee greatness
USA Today
An animal cloning firm makes no claim that a clone of Thoroughbred legend Secretariat would replicate his greatness.

“You only know it would have the same genetic potential to run like Secretariat,” says Blake Russell, vice president for ViaGen of Austin.

Thoroughbred breeder Dan Rosenberg, president of Three Chimneys Farm in Kentucky, says genetics aren’t guarantees.

“There’s an old adage: Mrs. Dempsey had seven sons; only one of them was Jack,” Rosenberg says.

Meanwhile, Thoroughbred racing shows no sign of bringing in the clones.

The Jockey Club, which oversees breeding in North America, says to be registered and race, a newborn must be “the result of a stallion’s breeding with a broodmare.” No artificial insemination, no embryo transfers from one mare to another ˜ and no cloning.

The Jockey Club requires reports to document matings and DNA from newborns for “parentage verification” testing.

“We have DNA from the mother and the father. ∑ We run those through labs,” spokesman Bob Curran Jr. says.

Rosenberg is confident the rules would detect even a secret clone: “If all those things don’t match, you can’t register the foal. It’s pretty much foolproof.”

He says the charm of breeding is in trying to find a mating that produces greatness.

“If you’re just going to clone the best horses, that joy is gone,” he says.

Objections go beyond that.

“You would basically, in laymen’s terms, have too many related horses,” says Dan Metzger, president of the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association.

“When you have more sire lines, more blood lines, it creates a stronger, more diverse blood line. ∑ Some people think it’s shrinking too much now.”

But ViaGen’s Russell says cloning could be a way to further new blood lines if a champion has a pedigree not “commonly seen.”

He says it could perpetuate a horse such as 2006 Kentucky Derby champion Barbaro, who died this year. “It’s a shame,” Russell says. “He had a tremendous contribution to make. Now he’s gone forever.”

In recent years, ViaGen has cloned bucking bulls (five Yellow Jackets and six Panhandle Slims), a champion rodeo barrel racing horse (Scamper) and competitive cutting horses.

It charges $150,000 to clone a horse, $15,000 for cattle and $5,000 for pigs. It offers DNA banking. Russell says Thoroughbred DNA could be frozen (for $1,500) for future use should the rule change.

Russell says all sorts of other factors would figure into what a horse becomes: “You don’t know what all the environmental factors were that may have caused Secretariat to be as great as he was.”

Three cloned mules, with what their creators say is matching nuclear DNA, were produced in 2003 by researchers from the University of Idaho and Utah State.

In 2006, Idaho Gem and Idaho Star competed in an eight-mule, 350-yard race in Nevada. Idaho Gem took third; Idaho Star was seventh.

Dirk Vanderwall, a researcher at Idaho and member of the cloning team, says the third mule, Utah Pioneer, is in training. The plan is for all three to race this year.

Shapshay, S. (2008) “Lifting the Genetic Veil of Ignorance: Is There Anything Really Unjust about Gattacan Society? In Shapshay, S. (Ed) Bioethics Through Film, Johns Hopkins University Press.