Faster, more efficient method for detecting illegal steroids in urine

[Mammoth2500]

Some interesting fyi:

http://www.physorg.com/news111661628.html

Amid growing concerns about sports “doping,” researchers in Indiana and China report development of a faster and more efficient method for detecting the presence of illegal anabolic steroids in urine. Their new method, which takes only a few seconds and involves no time-consuming sample preparation, will be described in the Nov. 1 issue of ACS’ Analytical Chemistry.

The study notes that use of banned substances by professional athletes to build muscle and gain a competitive advantage is a growing problem in sports such as track and field, baseball, football and cycling. Although effective methods exist for detecting the presence of illegal steroids in urine, current methods are time-consuming and involve cumbersome preparation steps.

Zheng Ouyang, R. Graham Cooks, and colleagues developed a new steroid-testing method that combines two state-of-the-art testing techniques called desorption electrospray ionization (DESI) and tandem mass spectrometry.

In laboratory studies, the researchers used it to analyze fresh urine samples for the presence of tiny amounts of seven different anabolic steroids. The new method accurately identified the steroids in only a few seconds using only a single drop of urine, they say.

Source: ACS

 

[partagus]

This sounds interesting....And very expensive. For the "common" man, it sounds like it will be too pricey for the majority of companies to incorporate into their drug testing. Thanks for the article Mammoth.

 

[matty420]

good post...
being a steroid user is getting tougher and tougher.
i'm going to start smoking rock.
seems alot more socially acceptable these days

 

[Thunderclap47]

WTF? Shouldn't they be working on a cure for cancer or something? Finding better ways to bust someone for steroids seems like a waste of time to me.

 

[702daswoll1]

good post...
being a steroid user is getting tougher and tougher.
i'm going to start smoking rock.
seems alot more socially acceptable these days

Damn bro I thought you already were!!!!

 

[Tatyana]

WTF? Shouldn't they be working on a cure for cancer or something? Finding better ways to bust someone for steroids seems like a waste of time to me.

I work in a lab, and the one thing you can guarentee is that lab testing will progress, become more specific, easier, cheaper.

I see technical papers like this all the time.

My master's project is combining two simple techniques to see if we can avoid muscle biopsies in some patients.


Tandem Mass Spec is used quite commonly for screening of inherited diseases of newborns, inborn errors of metabolism, often unusual amino acids in urine or blood, so there would be medical labs that would have this equipment.

It is just another application of the mass spec.

I wouldn't get my knickers in a twist about it.

I would get my knickers in a twist when they have monoclonal antibodies to all of the routine steroid metabolites, cause then it would be dead easy to screen for anabolic steroids.

There does need to be better screening for athletes are are meant to be clean, and WADA is constantly developing new techniques.

The latest thing is taking blood from subjects who are on anabolic steroids and those who are not and following a number of parameters/analytes to see if there are any changes that will make doping easier to detect.

This would mean that a routine blood test for things commonly available in labs could detect steroid use if anything comes of this research.

A little info on Mass Spec.


1. What is mass spectrometry (MS)? What information does mass spectrometry provide?

Mass spectrometry is an analytical tool used for measuring the molecular mass of a sample.

For large samples such as biomolecules, molecular masses can be measured to within an accuracy of 0.01% of the total molecular mass of the sample i.e. within a 4 Daltons (Da) or atomic mass units (amu) error for a sample of 40,000 Da. This is sufficient to allow minor mass changes to be detected, e.g. the substitution of one amino acid for another, or a post-translational modification.

For small organic molecules the molecular mass can be measured to within an accuracy of 5 ppm or less, which is often sufficient to confirm the molecular formula of a compound, and is also a standard requirement for publication in a chemical journal.

Structural information can be generated using certain types of mass spectrometers, usually those with multiple analysers which are known as tandem mass spectrometers. This is achieved by fragmenting the sample inside the instrument and analysing the products generated. This procedure is useful for the structural elucidation of organic compounds and for peptide or oligonucleotide sequencing.

2. Where are mass spectrometers used?

Mass spectrometers are used in industry and academia for both routine and research purposes. The following list is just a brief summary of the major mass spectrometric applications:

Biotechnology: the analysis of proteins, peptides, oligonucleotides

Pharmaceutical: drug discovery, combinatorial chemistry, pharmacokinetics, drug metabolism

Clinical: neonatal screening, haemoglobin analysis, drug testing

Environmental: PAHs, PCBs, water quality, food contamination

Geological: oil composition

3. How can mass spectrometry help biochemists?

Accurate molecular weight measurements:

sample confirmation, to determine the purity of a sample, to verify amino acid substitutions, to detect post-translational modifications, to calculate the number of disulphide bridges

Reaction monitoring:

to monitor enzyme reactions, chemical modification, protein digestion

Amino acid sequencing:

sequence confirmation, de novo characterisation of peptides, identification of proteins by database searching with a sequence "tag" from a proteolytic fragment

Oligonucleotide sequencing:

the characterisation or quality control of oligonucleotides

Protein structure:

protein folding monitored by H/D exchange, protein-ligand complex formation under physiological conditions, macromolecular structure determination

 

[ALIN]

Some interesting fyi:

http://www.physorg.com/news111661628.html

Amid growing concerns about sports “doping,” researchers in Indiana and China report development of a faster and more efficient method for detecting the presence of illegal anabolic steroids in urine. Their new method, which takes only a few seconds and involves no time-consuming sample preparation, will be described in the Nov. 1 issue of ACS’ Analytical Chemistry.

The study notes that use of banned substances by professional athletes to build muscle and gain a competitive advantage is a growing problem in sports such as track and field, baseball, football and cycling. Although effective methods exist for detecting the presence of illegal steroids in urine, current methods are time-consuming and involve cumbersome preparation steps.

Zheng Ouyang, R. Graham Cooks, and colleagues developed a new steroid-testing method that combines two state-of-the-art testing techniques called desorption electrospray ionization (DESI) and tandem mass spectrometry.

In laboratory studies, the researchers used it to analyze fresh urine samples for the presence of tiny amounts of seven different anabolic steroids. The new method accurately identified the steroids in only a few seconds using only a single drop of urine, they say.

Source: ACS

this keeps getting more interesting