The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) on Friday accepted an revolutionary methodology of screening dried blood for banned substances which might be trialled for the Tokyo Olympics.
The determination marks a “essential step” in the fight against doping, its scientific director Olivier Rabin said in an interview with AFP, as the so-called dried blood spot (DBS) testing technique will ultimately strengthen WADA’s capacity to track down cheaters.
Q. When will you start appplying this technique in a major competition?
A. “The Tokyo Olympics will be the first time that DBS will be used in a major multisport competition as part of the fight against doping… In order not to create double constraints for the athletes, the idea is that the blood that we will collect as part of the Athlete Biological Passport, a few drops will be taken and put on the dry matrix (a kind of blotting paper) which will allow us to analyze in a more precise way certain substances… At first this will be complementary to what we are doing today (blood tests and urine analyzes). For the Beijing Olympics next year, there is a progression planned, we will integrate new analyzes.”
Q. What are the advantages?
A: “To begin with it’s much less intrusive for the athletes. Some samples are taken from the fingertip, from the earlobe, from the shoulder, from the thigh… The different benefit of DBS is that from the second you place it on a piece of paper, the liquid will dry and it stabilizes the matrix… You need to put that in parallel with the more and more elaborate doping methods of sure athletes, who know very effectively use substances which keep a comparatively brief time in the physique. Certain substances, after 24, 36, 48 hours, you now not discover them… As effectively, the gathering of the pattern itself is usually cheaper, you don’t want all the same old tubes paraphernalia. And you do not need a bunch of bottles to retailer in massive fridges… Rather you simply have a sort of postcard that shops way more simply… In addition, it’s typically troublesome to go and take (conventional) samples in distant areas which can be removed from our anti-doping labs.”
Q. Is this new method a “game changer,” as AMA President Witold Banka has predicted?
A. “This is a essential step for the anti-doping group. In the long run, we can prolong anti-doping protection, higher analyze sure substances, we may also be capable of analyze new substances… We have to be very clear, it won’t exchange the present exams. It will take a while earlier than we’ve got exams on microliters of blood which can be as environment friendly, in the event that they ever might be, as what might be carried out at the moment with analyses of urine or bigger blood samples. But we expect that there’s a robust potential in the event of such a matrix. Maybe in 5 years, 10 years, we can measure EPO in a few microliters of dried blood, in which case we’ll say: that’s it, we are able to apply DBS to EPO, however at the moment it could not be sensible to take action.”
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