How have recent advances in genetics impacted the world of sport?
Prof. Theodore Friedmann: Sport is being affected seriously by genetics in two important ways. The first positive effect is the development of new kinds of tests for any and all kinds of doping. WADA has developed an important set of research studies and results that indicate that the tools of the modern genetic revolution—the same kinds of tools that produced the deciphering of the human genome several years ago— will be applied to finding evidence of exposure to performance-enhancing materials and procedures. On the negative side, the huge advances in gene therapy and the methods of introducing genes into humans to treat life-threatening disease are being seen by some to allow new ways to dope by introducing genes—not to cure disease but rather to enhance athletic performance. Genes control the function of muscle cells, blood-producing tissues and the ways in which our bodies utilize energy, and we know that many of those genes can be manipulated. The advances in methods to introduce
