ABSTRACT
Genetic manipulation is now a standard tool for biologists interested in understanding gene function in health and disease. Detection of gene doping is likely to prove challenging and requires different methodologies compared to current strategies for detection of doping. This chapter reviews the main targets, methods and detection of gene doping. The potential use of gene doping is critically dependent on the increasing understanding of the genetic modifiers of exercise physiology and the medical development of gene therapy systems that are highly efficient in man. While there is no evidence to date that athletes have practised gene doping, the threat of gene doping has lead to many laboratories working to develop systems to detect any possible gene doping. Many of the impressive studies showing an increased athletic performance in experimental animals were performed with transgenic mice in which the genetic modification is made to the very early embryo.
