Welcome to the Podiatry Arena forums, for communication between foot health professionals about podiatry and related topics.
You are currently viewing our podiatry forum as a guest which gives you limited access to view all podiatry discussions and access our other features. By joining our free global community of Podiatrists and other interested foot health care professionals you will have access to post podiatry topics (answer and ask questions), communicate privately with other members (PM), upload content, view attachments, receive a weekly email update of new discussions, earn CPD points and access many other special features. Registered users do not get displayed the advertisments in posted messages. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join our global Podiatry community today!
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact contact us.
Rugby team converts to give gene tests a trySUMMARY: Australian club wins advantage through genetically tailored training.
CONTEXT: Sydney An Australian rugby league team claims it has gained a competitive edge over its rivals by using genetic tests to tailor its players' training programmes. This move...
Unfortunatly this is all that is available without a paid subscription to Nature
I managed to dig up this snipet from hunting around:
Quote:
"Rugby team converts to give gene tests a try"
"The Sea Eagles, a professional rugby team in Manly, a seaside suburb of Sydney, has DNA-tested 18 of its 24 players for 11 exercise-related genes. Some of the genes tested are associated with the efficiency of oxygen use; others are involved in muscle development and clearing lactate, the chemical that causes muscle stiffness."
"Each player's training programme is being redesigned according to whether his individual genetic profile indicates, for example, that his main strength is endurance or speed. "We don't want a player running 100 kilometres a week if his genes say he's more suited to 50 kilometres a week and doing more weights," says Steve Dank, the team's physiologist behind the programme."
They are also trying "to develop genetic profiles that identify the sport best suited to an athlete. Genetic indicators of speed, power and endurance can inform decisions about whether an athlete is better suited to swimming or rowing, for instance."
Carina Dennis writes in Nature about an Australian rugby league team which aims to use genetic tests to stream-line training methods. The article quotes someone from the Australian Law Reforms Commission, whose report 'Essentially Yours' deals with this subject at some length. Australia seems to be taking a leading role in thinking through these issues. Ron Trent's work at the University of Sydney is central to this research and he claims that we still do not know enough about genes for this purpose. Issues of privacy and discrimination are central to this topic. Will genetically risky athletes be prevented from participation? Will young children who dont fit the profile be excluded? Will sports authorities have the legal power to demand genetic info from athletes?
Athletes could soon have their training program and diet optimised for peak performance and minimal injuries based on their individual genetics, says Professor Mark Hargreaves, from the Physiology Department at the University of Melbourne, Australia.
Hargreaves is chair of the Sports Meets Science Forum, to be held at the Bio21 Institute on Monday evening.
Currently, designing a training program best suited to an athlete can be a bit of trial and error. And mistakes can be costly to the athlete, resulting in injury or burnout.
"You can give the same exercise program to 700 individuals and get a very divergent response. Coaches individualise programs to a certain extent but it's trial and error," Hargreaves says.
"The new tools of molecular biology are giving us greater insight into an athlete's physiology."
Instead of focusing on one or two genes, Hargreaves says it's likely that the effects of multiple genes and their interactions with training and diet will have to be considered.
Collingwood Football Club's Head of Conditioning Dr David Buttifant, who is also taking part in the forum, says that the ability to monitor a player's physiological and biochemical profile during training and competition will allow coaches to identify fatigue and other conditions.
"It provides the opportunity to identify where the athlete is at and how to make further adaptations and training interventions," he says.
Now we have gene doping. From Medical News Today: Gene Doping In Athletes Is The New Challenge Being Addressed By UF, French Scientists
09 Aug 2007
Quote:
Gene doping has the potential to spawn athletes capable of out-running, out-jumping and out-cycling the strongest of champions. But research under way at the University of Florida could help level the playing field by detecting the first cases of gene doping in professional athletes before the practice enters the mainstream.
In the wake of recent Tour de France drug violations -- and with the 2008 Olympics looming -- the need to stay ahead of the game has never been more evident. That's why the Montreal-based World Anti-Doping Agency, or WADA, charged with monitoring the conduct of athletes, is working with investigators around the globe to develop a test that would bust competitors for injecting themselves with genetic material capable of enhancing muscle mass or heightening endurance.
"If an athlete injects himself in the muscle with DNA, would we be able to detect that?" asked one of France's leading gene therapy researchers, Philippe Moullier, M.D., Ph.D., an adjunct professor of microbiology and molecular genetics at UF and director of the Gene Therapy Laboratory at the Universite de Nantes in France.
Right now the answer is no, he said. But the UF scientists are among several groups collaborating with national and global anti-doping organizations to develop a test that could detect evidence of 'doped' DNA.
"WADA has had a research program in place for some years now, to try to develop tests for gene-based doping," said Theodore Friedmann, M.D., head of the agency's panel on genetic doping and director of the gene therapy program at the University of California, San Diego.
It sounds futuristic, but experts say it's only a matter of time. Unscrupulous athletes began showing an interest in gene doping in 2004, when the first reports of muscle-boosting therapies in mice were published by University of Pennsylvania researchers.
Since then, several potential targets of gene doping have emerged, including the gene for erythropoietin, or EPO. A bioengineered version of the hormone, currently on the market, increases red blood cell production in patients with anemia and boosts oxygen delivery to the body. In athletes, this translates to enhanced stamina and a competitive edge.
But because synthetic hormones such as EPO are prohibited by WADA and readily detected through drug tests, performance-driven athletes have begun searching for stealthier and more powerful alternatives.
"The next variation of boosting red blood cell production is to actually inject the EPO gene itself, which would cause increases in red blood cells," said Richard Snyder, Ph.D., an assistant professor of microbiology and molecular genetics at UF and director of UF's Center of Excellence for Regenerative Health Biotechnology. "So the idea is to develop a test that could detect the gene that's administered."
The task isn't easy -- the researchers are faced with a myriad of uncertainties, such as which tissues in the body to sample and how to distinguish a 'doped' gene from a naturally occurring form of the gene. Ultimately, the test will compare how many copies of the EPO gene are found in an athlete's body to levels found in the average person who has not been doping.
"Our research aims to develop the ability to detect gene doping, primarily in athletes. But it has a wider purpose, and that's to understand how gene therapies are disseminated throughout the body," added Snyder, whose research stemmed from a cooperative agreement between the UF Genetics Institute and two biomedical research organizations in France: INSERM, the French version of the National Institutes of Health, and the French national blood bank, Etablissement Francais du Sang Pays de Loire. The agreement allows Snyder and Moullier to pool their expertise and resources.
A major objective of the UF-French collaboration is to decipher the structure of AAV, a virus commonly used to deliver genes into the body for therapeutic purposes. Gene 'doping' would enter the body through a similar route, but scientists say the two procedures are as different as night and day from a therapeutic standpoint.
"When you use the phrase 'gene therapy' it should be very clear that you're talking about therapy," Friedmann emphasized. "But the same process of transferring genes would also be relevant in sport doping settings. And there you cannot talk about gene 'therapy' -- you can simply refer to the same technology as gene 'transfer.'"
Gene therapy has progressed in leaps and bounds over the years, but the field has proved anything but predictable. Scientists say gene doping will be no different. Current technologies could prove ineffective -- or even lethal -- in humans. When the EPO gene was first introduced into macaques, for example, the animals produced so many red blood cells that their veins clogged, and many eventually died after developing massive allergic responses to the therapy.
"I think many athletes know of the technology. They're aware and they're concerned. WADA's aware and concerned," Friedmann said. "One can overestimate the urgency, or one can be sort of blind to it. But the technology is relatively straightforward and people involved in gene therapy studies could very well see how it could be applied to sport doping."
Genetically tailored sports training
Linear Mode
