Originally Posted by
Duragrouch
I just read a story today on NPR about using gene therapy to CURE a rare genetic-based cause of deafness in humans. Not theory, works.
So it is not out of the realm of possibility that some gene therapy is going on in bike racing. Tough to detect, and tough to challenge; "Why should someone who won the gene lottery at birth, have that advantage, when the playing field can be leveled?"
Nope. Not even close to the realm of possibility.
That deafness cure was one gene in one very specific type of cell in one small location inside the ear and the result was an increase in one type of protein. And that wasn't exactly easy.
The human genome has around 3 billion base pairs, and we don't know what most of those do. I'm almost 100% sure we don't know which genes make for good athletes or why. And even if we did, changing them would be extremely risky, because there's so many interactions between all the cell level processes. Change the wrong one and suddenly you're producing prions.