Would a gene doper get an asterisk?The last few blogs I have been talking about people adding genes to their DNA to make them better athletes. The reason they're considering this sort of gene doping instead of just taking a designer steroid or two is that a DNA change will supposedly be more permanent, safer, and harder to detect. Well, one out of three ain't bad.
Adding a gene would seem to be more permanent than taking a drug because the gene will always be in someone's DNA. But the gene may not necessarily always work. One of the big problems with gene therapy is that cells will often shut down any foreign DNA that inserts into their own DNA. This is a good defense against viruses that do this sort of thing but it means that an added gene will often peter out over time.
I dealt with the safety issues of gene therapy in my last blog. Suffice it to say that it is not yet very safe. Side effects like leukemia or other cancers seem pretty risky to me.
The big "selling" point to gene doping would seem to be detection. The thought is that it would be harder to catch a gene doper compared to a regular old doper. And in some ways this is true.
Remember, with gene therapy we are looking for an extra gene, not a change to one of the athlete's genes. This is a good chunk of DNA that can be found with microarray tests. Or even with DNA sequencing when the cost gets a bit cheaper.
