Doping in sports and society: a growing problem

At the EuroScience Open Forum 2016 in Manchester Professor Arne Ljungqvist, Honorary Member of the International Olympic Committee, Former Vice President of the Word Anti- Doping Agency and Honorary Life President of the International Association of Athletics Federations will discuss doping in Olympic Sports. Due to recent identification of certain steroid metabolites that remain in the body long time after steroid intake (so called "long- term metabolites"), a large number of samples collected at the Beijing and London Games have yielded positive results when analyzed again. This may lead to retroactive sanctions of many athletes, and is a good example of the importance of scientific progress in the fight against doping.

There are several new sources of doping substances. They include the markets of largely unregulated and adulterated nutritional supplements and of unapproved pharmaceuticals. Professor Hans Geyer from Deutsche Sporthochschule Köln is an expert in this field.

Doping raises complex issues that cut across science, ethics, and sports governance. Professor Mike McNamee from Swansea University will discuss this complexity, and the interplay of philosophy and science that is required in order to carry out an anti-doping policy effectively and ethically.

Professor Carl Johan Sundberg from Karolinska Institutet, member of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) gene doping panel will present how the development of gene and cell therapy, and possibly gene editing, poses a clear risk that more refined methods will come into use. Over the last decade, considerable efforts have been made to find detection methods for gene doping with the first WADA approved test to be employed in the Rio Games.