New test 1,000 times more effective

[coinneach]

Interesting article in the BBC today:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26636371

Wonder when it will become available?

Would this act as a deterrent to potential cheats just now?

 

[RobbieCanuck]

Interesting article in the BBC today:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26636371

Wonder when it will become available?

Would this act as a deterrent to potential cheats just now?

How ironic that the lead researcher is a Dr. Armstrong. And no it will not deter cheats because the research did not involve EPO or blood transfusions just steroids, stimulants, alcohol and depressants.

 

[King Boonen]

That article has the worst explanation of how mass spectrometry works that I've ever read, it's pretty much 100% inaccurate, especially considering they are using electrospray as an ionisation source.


Robbie, it did not include EPO doping or autologous blood transfusions because mass spectrometry is cannot currently be used to detect EPO doping or autologous blood transfusions.

 

[tofino]

This part of article

What about this part of the article;

While they have had many enquiries from reporters, so far they've had none from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the US anti-doping agency (USADA), or the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

But it did say it would find HgH.

 

[King Boonen]

What about this part of the article;

While they have had many enquiries from reporters, so far they've had none from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the US anti-doping agency (USADA), or the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

But it did say it would find HgH.

It was just presented at ACS according to the article, I'm wondering if they have even written it up yet.

 

[Toonser]

It was just presented at ACS according to the article, I'm wondering if they have even written it up yet.

The ACS press release is here.

 

[King Boonen]

The ACS press release is here.

No paper reference (I didn't read the article just looked for a link) so I'm assuming it's been submitted or they haven't written it up yet.

Either way, it's not surprising WADA hasn't conatacted them if that is the case.

 

[Justinr]

How ironic that the lead researcher is a Dr. Armstrong.

Yeah that bit made me laugh out loud!

 

[Justinr]

What about this part of the article;

While they have had many enquiries from reporters, so far they've had none from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the US anti-doping agency (USADA), or the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

But it did say it would find HgH.

Wonder how many enquiries they've had from team doctors...

And actually it said it WOULDNT find HGH.

 

[Briant_Gumble]

In what way is this 1000 times more effective?

As in if the normal clearance fine for synthetic testosterone is 1 day it will be able to detect for up to 1000 days?

 

[Justinr]

In what way is this 1000 times more effective?

As in if the normal clearance fine for synthetic testosterone is 1 day it will be able to detect for up to 1000 days?

It talked about being able to detect smaller quantities. I assume when people talk about how long something takes to pass through the body they mean until it is undetectable by current tests.

 

[King Boonen]

In what way is this 1000 times more effective?

As in if the normal clearance fine for synthetic testosterone is 1 day it will be able to detect for up to 1000 days?

It doesn't say effective, it says sensitive and there is quite a difference in this case.

The sensitivity of a mass spectrometer in a measure of the smallest amount of a material it can detect.

The usual method of ESI for LC-MS gives sensitivities in the range of parts per thousand to parts per million on most mass specs and is highly dependent on the analyte.

This technique claims to be 1000 times more sensitive so it would be of the order of parts per billion, possibly per trillion.

I've been unable to find the paper, so I'm guessing it's either waiting to be published or has not been submitted yet but it's going to be very dependent on the analyte.


In terms of clearance times and detection justinr is correct. The current stated times would be based on the limit of detection for the current methods, this method could lower those limits and so increase the time over which some PEDs are detectable.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Cue the clever excuse generator in overdrive as riders drop out left, right and center to rethink their doping protocols for the big races they had either targeted or mentioned in the coming season.

 

[proffate]

If it's a thousand times more sensitive then that means you have to wait for log_2(1000) ~= 10 more half lifes for the substance to clear.

I don't know if these half-lifes[1] are accurate but let's assume they are for instructional purposes. Take Clenbuterol for example. It says 1.5 days for clen. So now you have to wait 15 additional days for the level of clen in your system to drop below the new threshold of detection.

[1] http://www.british-bodybuilding.co.uk/Half-Life.shtml

 

[King Boonen]

Cue the clever excuse generator in overdrive as riders drop out left, right and center to rethink their doping protocols for the big races they had either targeted or mentioned in the coming season.

Possibly. Thing is I don't think it'll be implemented for a while. It'll have to be tested and verified in a WADA lab, but it should make a few guys worried.

Thing is it's not really a new approach, so I'm quite interested to see what's actually in the paper.

 

[King Boonen]

If it's a thousand times more sensitive then that means you have to wait for log_2(1000) ~= 10 more half lifes for the substance to clear.

I don't know if these half-lifes[1] are accurate but let's assume they are for instructional purposes. Take Clenbuterol for example. It says 1.5 days for clen. So now you have to wait 15 additional days for the level of clen in your system to drop below the new threshold of detection.

[1] http://www.british-bodybuilding.co.uk/Half-Life.shtml

That might not be the case though. While the analysis might be more sensitive the extraction method may now become the limiting factor. We'd need to know if they've actually tested this by spiking blood/urine samples or if they've made up analytical standards and tested those. It could make a big difference to whether this is applicable.

It could be promising but there are a lot of reason why WADA haven't jumped on this just yet.

 

[Merckx index]

That might not be the case though. While the analysis might be more sensitive the extraction method may now become the limiting factor. We'd need to know if they've actually tested this by spiking blood/urine samples or if they've made up analytical standards and tested those. It could make a big difference to whether this is applicable.

It could be promising but there are a lot of reason why WADA haven't jumped on this just yet.

There are actually some tests for CB that are more sensitive than the currently used one, e.g.:

Anal Chim Acta. 2011 Jul 4;697(1-2):61-6. Epub 2011 Apr 23.
Highly sensitive detection of clenbuterol using competitive surface-enhanced Raman scattering immunoassay.
Zhu G, Hu Y, Gao J, Zhong L.
Source
MOE Key Laboratory of Laser Life Science & Institute of Laser Life Science, College of Biophotonics, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China.
Abstract
In this report, we present a novel approach to detect clenbuterol based on competitive surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) immunoassay. Herein, a SERS nanoprobe that relies on gold nanoparticle (GNP) is labeled by 4,4'-dipyridyl (DP) and clenbuterol antibody, respectively. The detection of clenbuterol is carried out by competitive binding between free clenbuterol and clenbuterol-BSA fastened on the substrate with their antibody labeled on SERS nanoprobes. The present method allows us to detect clenbuterol over a much wider concentration range (0.1-100 pg mL(-1)) with a lower limit of detection (ca. 0.1 pg mL(-1)) than the conventional methods. Furthermore, by the use of this new competitive SERS immunoassay, the clenbuterol-BSA (antigen) is chosen to fasten on the substrate instead of the clenbuterol antibody, which could reduce the cost of the assay. Results demonstrate that the proposed method has the wide potential applications in food safety and agonist control.

0.1 pg/ml is about 100x more sensitive than the currently used test. At levels of detection this low, though, one begins to worry that it will be possible to become positive just from what is picked up through environmental contamination, not only meat that passes inspection standards, but even the water supplies. To take the meat example, the current Euro standard is 100 ng/kg of meat. if you eat 200 g of meat at that standard, your urine would probably peak out at 3-4 pg/ml, and it would be detectable for maybe a week to ten days later.

 

[King Boonen]

There are actually some tests for CB that are more sensitive than the currently used one, e.g.:



0.1 pg/ml is about 100x more sensitive than the currently used test. At levels of detection this low, though, one begins to worry that it will be possible to become positive just from what is picked up through environmental contamination, not only meat that passes inspection standards, but even the water supplies. To take the meat example, the current Euro standard is 100 ng/kg of meat. if you eat 200 g of meat at that standard, your urine would probably peak out at 3-4 pg/ml, and it would be detectable for maybe a week to ten days later.

It's interesting, but, well, it's SERS. It's not the easiest thing to get to work and it's only applicable to testing for a single compound per run so I can see why it's not being used.

I'm sure there are ways to increase the sensitivity of lots of the detection methods to be honest, but they need to be implementable in the accredited labs.

 

[Merckx index]

It's interesting, but, well, it's SERS. It's not the easiest thing to get to work and it's only applicable to testing for a single compound per run so I can see why it's not being used.

Sure, but you could say much the same about the EPO test, or any test for blood doping. Ideally, you want one method that covers a lot of different substances or procedures, but if one substance or procedure is being especially abused, then maybe in certain circumstances it's cost effective to use a more sensitive test focussing just on that. Remember, targeting in doping tests is important, and that doesn't necessarily mean only targeting particular riders, but sometimes perhaps targeting particular substances. Moreover, if an athlete came up borderline on a less sensitive test, this could be used as a backup.

That said, the main point of my previous post was that there is a limit to how sensitive you want the CB test to be, given that at a certain point you can't distinguish doping from inspected meat. A thousand-fold is overkill.

 

[proffate]

Sure, but you could say much the same about the EPO test, or any test for blood doping. Ideally, you want one method that covers a lot of different substances or procedures, but if one substance or procedure is being especially abused, then maybe in certain circumstances it's cost effective to use a more sensitive test focussing just on that. Remember, targeting in doping tests is important, and that doesn't necessarily mean only targeting particular riders, but sometimes perhaps targeting particular substances. Moreover, if an athlete came up borderline on a less sensitive test, this could be used as a backup.

That said, the main point of my previous post was that there is a limit to how sensitive you want the CB test to be, given that at a certain point you can't distinguish doping from inspected meat. A thousand-fold is overkill.

I don't think you need to limit the sensitivity of the test. Plenty of substances have an acceptable threshold that is non-zero. Just invent such a standard for CB. But yes, a test would be overkill if it could detect beyond the limit.

 

[manafana]

this was not just on the bbc it was widely reported, doesnt mean too much in cycling must stuff its detecting is less common but any improvement is good.

 

[Aapjes]

That said, the main point of my previous post was that there is a limit to how sensitive you want the CB test to be, given that at a certain point you can't distinguish doping from inspected meat. A thousand-fold is overkill.

I think more sensitivity is always better, but you'd probably want to set a lower limit for what counts as a positive. With a higher sensitivity, you may be able to detect micro-dosing patterns and can then do targeted testing on possible dosing days/times.