Photo: John Kopchick, Ph.D., Goll-Ohio Professor
of Molecular and Cellular Biology, (left) works with Nick
Okada, Ph.D., and Maria Beigel, a 2007 Summer Undergraduate
Research Fellow, at Kopchick’s lab at the Edison Biotechnology
Institute.
by Susie Shutts
Aug. 8, 2007
It’s nearly impossible to
listen to the news without hearing about the latest doping
scandals in professional sports. While the use of
performance-enhancing drugs can taint an athlete’s victory, or
be the source of their demise — 58 riders were implicated on the
eve of last year’s Tour de France — their use can also lead to
serious health problems. Since 2003, eight cyclists have
died from heart attacks that are suspected to have been caused
by performance-enhancing drugs.
The sheer number of these drugs
makes testing and detection a challenge.
Earlier this year, John
Kopchick, Ph.D.,
Goll-Ohio Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology, and J.O. Jorgensen, M.D.,
began research that aims to detect human growth hormone — which
builds muscle and reduces fat — allegedly used as an athletic
doping agent. The World Anti-Doping Agency granted $482,000 to
Kopchick and Jorgensen for a three-year study.
By analyzing the serum proteins
from samples exposed to the hormone, the two are searching for a
clinical marker of human growth hormone action. “The research
may result in a more accurate, sensitive, reliable test” to
detect growth hormone doping, Kopchick says.
Samples from human subjects
exposed to growth hormone or exercise, as well as patients with
growth hormone disorders, are collected by Jorgensen, of Aarhus
University Hospital in Denmark, and delivered to Kopchick’s lab
at Ohio University’s Edison Biotechnology Institute. Jorgensen,
a friend and colleague of Kopchick for 10 years, and Kopchick
are world renowned experts in the study of human growth hormone.
According to Jorgensen, simply
measuring growth hormone in the blood is inconclusive because
exogenous, misused growth hormone is identical to that produced
by the pituitary gland, and says Kophick, the hormone is only
detectable for about 15 minutes in the body.
“Exercise in and of itself will
release growth hormone,” Kopchick says. “You have to be sure
that any test developed will detect levels that are up and
beyond that induced by normal exercise.”
In addition to violating the
ethos of sports, growth hormone doping can be physically
harmful. Acromegaly, a disease characterized by excess growth
hormone production from a pituitary tumor, is linked to
diabetes, heart disease and excess morbidity and mortality in
these patients.
“A more general concern, which
we believe everybody shares, is that illicit use of any kind of
compound may spread from elite athletes to young people and
‘recreational athletes’ working out at the gym around the
corner,” Jorgensen states. “The consequences of that could be
very serious.”
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