Genetically modified athelete - does it run true?

Pune , Aug. 9

INDIA hankers to be a global centre in biotechnology, and it hopes that some day the Olympics will mean more than a junket for the politicians and bureaucrats who govern our sports. With the arrival of the genetically modified athlete, things just might be begin to go India's way finally.

The word is that the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) believes that it may soon have to deal with genetically modified athletes, till now confined to science fiction. Perhaps, even at the Athens Olympics.

Early this year, Dr Lee Sweeney, who heads the research on how gene therapy can make muscles respond better to exercise, at the University of Pennsylvania, said that half the e-mails he gets are from patients suffering from muscle dystrophy and the rest from athletes and coaches.

Researchers at the university injected rats with a modified virus that transported a gene to their hind leg muscles. The gene was found to trigger an increased production of a growth hormone called IGF-I. This along with an intensive exercise of ladder climbing caused the rats'...