ATHLETES who cheat by injecting themselves with stored supplies of their own blood might soon be caught out. A telltale trail of debris could give the game away.
Most 鈥渂lood dopers鈥� cheat by injecting themselves with the blood-boosting hormone erythropoietin, but there have been tests to detect EPO since 2000. Another way to dope blood is to periodically extract some of your own, store it and re-inject it before competitions.
Some professional cyclists are alleged to have done this as part of a doping scandal that emerged in Spain in 2006, dubbed . At least one cyclist is still fighting to clear his name.
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Re-injecting stored blood boosts the oxygen supply to muscles. The practice has so far eluded detection but now there might be a way catch out the cheats.
During storage, red blood cells start to fall apart, generating debris such as the fragments of cell membranes. Olaf Schumacher of the University of Freiburg in Germany and his colleagues have shown that when stored blood is re-injected, the recipient鈥檚 white blood cells prepare to get rid of this sudden tide of debris. They say that these changes are detectable. 鈥淚t鈥檚 like someone dumping rubbish in your blood,鈥� he says. 鈥淲hen all the rubbish comes at once, there鈥檚 lots of activity.鈥�
鈥淚t鈥檚 like someone dumping rubbish in your blood. When it comes at once, there鈥檚 lots of activity鈥�
Schumacher鈥檚 team took blood from six non-athletes, stored it for 35 days then re-infused it, taking further blood samples three and four days afterwards. When they analysed the white blood cells in these samples, genes needed for identifying and disposing of ailing and damaged cells were much more active than usual (Vox Sanguinis, ).
The gene changes led to the appearance of new proteins on the surface of the white blood cells which could potentially be picked up by antibodies, Schumacher says. He also suggests that antibodies could be created to detect the changes to the surface of red blood cells as well.
Schumacher couldn鈥檛 say whether such tests would be ready in time for the 2012 Olympics in London.
David Cowan, director of the UK Drug Control Centre at King鈥檚 College London, says: 鈥淭he paper is promising, but more work is needed to establish a test that meets the rigorous standards required by sport so as not to falsely accuse an athlete.鈥�
Schumacher says that one key goal is to make sure these changes only occur due to doping, rather than illness, for example.
