WADA optimistic about gene doping detection research

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Thursday said researches in gene doping detection were promising and they hoped a reliable test can be ready for the Rio summer Olympic Games.

WADA vice president Arne Ljungqvist said they are on way to detect gene doping, a sidedoor of gene therapy to enchance athletes' sports performance by manipulating their genes.

"It is always difficult to predict when something is ready, validated and possibly used. Sometimes it goes much quicker than expected, sometimes you meet obstacles that are not foreseen," said the Swede after the fourth Gene and Cell Doping Symposium.

WADA has invested about 15 million U.S. dollars into researches on detection since it first held a gene doping symposium in 2002, when gene therapy just had its first step.

"I hope we are not very far from it. It is a very vague promise but we had a hope that for the next edition of the Games, we will have a proper method in place," said Ljunquivst, who also chairs International Olympic Committee's medical commission. "That is the message we are sending and a mission we are working hard on."

Theodore Friedmann, WADA's gene and cell doping panel head, said scientists involved in the project are making "major breakthroughs in lab level" but a test must be "accurate and fair and avoid too many false positives" before application.

WADA had revealed that a reliable test might be ready before the London Olympic Games in 2012 after two groups of scientists found ways to trace GW1516, which can increase the volume of so-called endurance muscles as well as enzymes to gain energy from fat. But the test was not used in London.

Despite the fact that WADA is trying very hard to stay ahead of gene doping, there is no hard evidence that athletes are misusing it.

"Some revelations lately seemed indirectly confirmed that gene doping is not yet there. I refer specifically to the revelations in the Armstrong case where there is no evidence that gene technology has benn misued in that sport or by his team," said Ljunquivst. "Being such a sophisticated doping regime, the technology would have been there if it had been available."