Friday, October 7, 2011

New Tests in the Works for Growth Hormone

I was reading an article the other day called Chemical Catcher.  Essentially a scientist by the name of Alessandra Luchini has developed a way to detect "biomarkers."  My understanding is the these biomarkers are a faint hint of a presence of a disease in our bodily fluid.   They are normally chewed up by our enzymes within minutes before any type of test can detect them.

If there were a way to detect these biomarkers, doctors could detect diseases much earlier.  This would offer much better outcomes for recovery.  Luchini, according to this article in Popular Science, developed a nanoparticle trap that works like a net.  So far she has been able to use this nanoparticle trap for early diagnosis of Lyme and Tuberculosis.

Amazing break throughs on the horizon.  What really caught my eye though, was a small sentence in the middle of the article.  "This test can also detect the presence of Human Growth Hormone in Urine."  Previously only GH could be detected in blood samples.  Many sports only do urine testing.    Look out sports world.  We may be on the cusp of a lot more athletes being busted.  Say, someone that goes from 19.78 to 19.26 in the 200m.  Just my own speculation though.

No comments: