Timeline: 3–5 Years
BACKGROUND: In 1997, geneticists Alexandra McPherron of the National Institutes of Health and Sie-Jin Lee of Johns Hopkins University discovered that “turning off” the protein myostatin can double the size of muscles in mice. Myostatin keeps muscle stem cells inactive during normal use. Turn off the protein’s signaling ability, and those cells turn their host into the Hulk. Last year, researchers at the Human Genome Research Center found the same mutation occurring naturally in a few Popeye-esque whippet dogs—typically a skin-and-bones breed—called bully whippets. In races, bully whippets run almost twice as fast as genetically normal whippets.
WHERE IT'S AT: As soon as McPherron and Lee announced their myostatin discovery, weightlifters were quick to offer their services as human test subjects. But a better test case came along by accident in 2000, after a German baby born without the protein exhibited extremely overdeveloped muscles. Today, though still extraordinarily muscular, the boy is in perfect health, suggesting that safely blocking myostatin in humans is a real possibility. In lab tests, two injections of one mysostatin blocker produced a permanent 50 percent muscle gain in mice. “Just about every major pharmaceutical company is developing a myostatin-blocking drug to treat muscle-wasting diseases like muscular dystrophy,” Lee says. Because these medicines will use traditional antibody-based drug-delivery methods, a myostatin inhibitor could be on the market in five years.
DETECTION: Myostatin blockers that use antibodies should be pretty easy to detect, since similar tests already exist. But alternative delivery systems like RNA interference and gene therapy, probably the norm for drugs in a decade, would make catching abusers near impossible. And although an athlete sporting a 50 percent increase in muscle mass might be a dead giveaway, partial inhibition of the myostatin pathway could lead to less obvious effects.
Left: A myostatin-deprived whippet runs twice as fast as a scrawny normal whippet [inset].
Gene Therapy WIL re-write the crude practice of medicine we call modern. I sure hope therapies can be provided for the masses suffering from genetic afflictions like Muscular Dystrophy. Coming from the eye side of medicine, I'd hope for congenital treatments for retinals disorders.
To all those unsung PhD's pluggin' along in secluded labs: Keep At It ! Your efforts will ring forever in history!
In 1972 I wrote about Olympic athletes using nerve stimulation wiring to give them faster reflexes and enhance the actions of muscles. In the future, that might be done first to help paralyzed people to function normally and later to help athletes cheat. No scars may be left if cellular fusion of the skin can be done.
Other ways they might cheat would be by using biosynthetic brain implants that may not be easily detected by tests. Athletes could program their bodies to perform better. In the future, athletes may have to have their DNA registered before they can compete so that if their performance improves too much, judges can check their DNA to see if there have been any changes.
Biosynthetic muscles might be implanted to enhance their performance. But they may appear so "natural" that tests may not detect much of a difference.
Some of the most dangerous enhancements could be roving chemical stimulation nanobots that could be programmed to detect what is needed to enhance a performance and then cause increased production of such substances as adrenaline and endorphins. If a marathon runner were to finish a race in less than two hours, once the nanobots go back into ready or dormant mode, the body will have to try and perform without assistance which may kill the athlete. So if we hear of athletes finishing a race and then dropping dead, they may have to be checked for bioenhancements to see if cheating caught up with them and killed them.
I do a cable TV program that deals with the future and future technology. I wrote that 150 years in the future, Shea Stadium will have a dome that will be low enough to allow planes to safely fly over it because the majority of the stadium will be underground. The Yankee Stadium of that time could have cremation cemetery plots in a wall where Yankee fans and former players could be interred.
Stadium complexes will become small cities where people could go in the morning to for breakfast at one of the restaurants, go shopping later, experience baseball games in the Experiencable Program Gallery, eat dinner before the game, watch the game, and maybe stay the night in the stadium hotel.
The domed stadiums may come in three basic types; permanent dome, retractable dome, and ventilated dome. The domes would have light tubes in them so that a night game may not need regular lights because the lighted dome will be bright enough. The ventilated dome will be one in which the air can pass inside, but rain and snow will be blocked. If it is too hot or cold outside, the dome will close until after the game when it will open again so that natural grass can be grown. The dome would catch water and send it to a reservoir to be used to keep the grass alive. Ventilated domes would be used elsewhere like outdoor skating rinks, tennis courts, and building complexes so that people won't need to shovel snow in the winter.
Once we perfect teleportation, teams could play in two stadiums simultaneously. A transporter frame will divide the field so that the away team could remain at home and travel to the other stadium via teleportation. That means both stadiums could be used simultaneously to double the number in attendance. If there is no game going on, extended 3-D games could be played on the fields. We could have the 1927 Yankees playing the 1972 Cincinnati Reds to see which team is the best if they had played in the World Series. That series might have more people watch it than the regular series.
With EPUs, people could experience games. In the future, once Experiencable Program Units are perfected, a team like the Yankees might have over a million people experiencing each game. If the cast is $20 per game and the season is 180 games long, that would be an extra $3.6 billion. If the Yankees went to the World Series and played maybe the Tokyo Giants, there might be a billion people experiencing each game at $100 a game. Seven games would bring in $700 billion. A pitcher might receive more money per pitch than some people make working a month or year make. And for more money, people could experience being at the plate or elsewhere on the field. EPUs will keep ticket prices down because more people will want to experience the games than attend the ballparks. But with all the added features stadiums will have in the future, people will still want to attend the games in person.
No need for so called athletes to take the drugs. Make the awards annually to the drug producers the have the most performing enhancing products in each class for the previous year.
Why have a performance contest of juiced up drug addicts putting on a show. How silly can the public become?
s/Stan
How about a high protein diet, and a good solid workout? Isn't that what it is all about? The athlete should be competing fairly with everyone! People in countries without the genetic research capabilities are already at a disadvantage, I thought sports were suppose to be a friendly competition, and unlike war, you should play fairly and NOT exploit every technical advantage. I invented a new workout device that is cheap, portable, and easy to use which can accompany a good diet to achieve results without doping.
You can see it at:
www.urbanchicsoap.com/fit
I recently entered my Fitness invention in the Create The Future Contest sponsored by NASA and Solidworks. Check it out here!
If you have an idea, why not enter?
http://www.createthefuturecontest.com/pages/view/entriesdetail.html?entryID=1346
It's only a matter of time before someone steals our "Genetic" Identity. Wouldn't that be something? Good thing I'm almost finished with that novel I've been writing. Look for it soon on shelves, "Genetic Identity Theft:GIT with the program.
How about gene enhancement that removes the need for competition and to be the best. That way people can be happy being themselves instead of trying to be someone there not.