Originally Posted by
HigherGround
I'm sorry to say that I was highly suspicious of how he dominated the climbs in the Giro. I had been wondering if any of his urine samples had been preserves so that the CERA test could be applied retroactively. Assuming the B-sample test supports the initial result (or have they already processed that test?), this is a great catch.
Does anyone know how long the CERA marker stays in the user's body? If someone was using during the Giro, but stopped afterwards, would they still test positive now for CERA?
Apparently there is no "marker molecule" added to CERA specifically for doping detection. The molecule is
pegylated to make it a more effective therapeutic, and this may coincidentally aid in detection*. To answer you question, if the PEG is the "marker", then it should remain in the body as long as the CERA is there.
Whatever the case, it is a great catch (assuming corroborating B), and evidence that targeted testing is effective.
*EDIT: I think detection is still based on antibody hybridization with the EPO-like molecule, but the addition of PEG makes CERA significantly larger than normal EPO, thus allowing easier distinction between synthetic and normal proteins. But I'm not positive (no pun intended).