With the Winter 2010 Olympics less than 30 days away, the analytic chemists and their rivals are hard at work.
The journal Drug Testing and Analysis has a wide variety of articles looking at performance enhancing drugs and therapies.
Have a look at the article The hunt for gene dopers authored by Mansour, Mai M. H. and Azzazy, Hassan M. E.
Here’s the abstract of the article.
Gene doping, the abuse of gene therapy for illicit athletic enhancement, is perceived as a coming threat and is a prime concern to the anti-doping community. This doping technique represents a significant ethical challenge and there are concerns regarding its safety for athletes. This article presents the basics of gene doping, potential strategies for its detection and the role of promising new technologies in aiding detection efforts. These include the use of lab-on-a-chip techniques as well as nanoparticles to enhance the performance of current analytical methods and to develop new doping detection strategies. Copyright 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Medline and Web of Science and two excellent databases to monitor this spy vs spy battle between the IOC, the World Anti-Doping Agency and the performance enhancers.
Submitted by Kevin Lindstrom Liaison Librarian for Chemistry at the University of British Columbia