When Ronald Evans discovered a way to make mice run farther and longer than they ever had before, he didn't understand what he had unleashed on the world of sport.

The molecular biologist's intent was to help people with metabolic disease, such as obesity and diabetes. But he opened up the possibility of a drug that could be abused by athletes to push the limits of human endurance.

The next step is to put his research into a pill, and now the renowned professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., has been commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency to help police the Pandora's box he helped make.

After the frenzied media coverage of his "marathon mice," Evans can see why some athletes may look to gene science to succeed in the sports arena.

"In our society, if you are a half step behind, you are not second, you are a loser," he says from his California office. "If they (athletes) can take something that will let them win, they will do it. I think athletes have shown us that."

One of six winners of this year's $30,000 Gairdner Awards in medical science, Evans is giving a public lecture tonight, entitled Winning and Losing: Engineering the genome to enhance athletic performance, at the Medical and Related Sciences Centre in Toronto.
The public lecture precedes the awards dinner, which takes place on Thursday.

Founded in 1957 by Toronto businessman James Gairdner, the international awards recognize five scientists each year for their outstanding research, and 65 Gairdner winners have gone on to win the illustrious Nobel Prize.

Other scientists have found themselves in similar ethical dilemmas to Evans's after their scientific investigations, though intended to serve the public good, were used for nefarious purposes. Physicists, for example, had to deal with the distinction between atomic power and the atomic bomb, says Rod McInnes, scientific director of the Institute of Genetics at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

"There's often a fine line between responsible research and putting (it) toward inappropriate ends," he says.

But these types of ethical questions are relatively new in medical science, he says, only appearing after the arrival of gene therapy - that is, with the prospect of tinkering with human genes.

"And one example is in the world of highly competitive athletics, where there are strong forces to push an individual in this direction, even though society at large would find it repugnant."

Evans, who has been at the forefront of molecular biology for two decades, unveiled his marathon mice in 2004.

The scientist engineered the animals' genome to "switch on" a gene to burn calories more efficiently. The researchers soon noticed that it increased quality of exercise. The work showed, for the first time, that it was possible to increase or alter endurance without traditional athletic training.

Evans is now taking his research one step further, this time with his eyes open to its unintended consequences.

He's investigating whether drugs can control the molecular switches. One day, he says, people with metabolic syndrome - a cluster of risk factors that include high blood pressure, high cholesterol and abdominal obesity - could pop a pill to increase the quality of their exercise, perhaps protecting them from type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

"The bad part is that if you develop a pill that can increase exercise to benefit the body, healthy people might want to take it, specifically to improve athletic performance," he says with a sigh. "There's a long history of athletes being willing to take drugs to improve performance."

Because his research has the potential to leap from the lab to the sports stadium, the World Anti-Doping Agency, or WADA, has asked Evans to devise a test to catch athletes who use his techniques to gene dope.

Athletes don't know how to use his findings to improve endurance, but Evans says they will figure it out as he continues to publish the results of his experiments. But he plans to be one step ahead and provide WADA with a test that can detect gene doping, which the agency banned in 2003.

"Since we created the potential problem, we kind of know what the potential answer would be."

Tim Caulfield, who holds the title of Canada research chair in health law and policy at the University of Alberta, says scientists continually grapple with how to deal with the unintended use of new therapies and technologies.

"Scientists, especially those doing genetic and stem cell research, have become sensitive to the broad social ramifications of their research," he says. "They haven't stopped their research, but work with policy-makers and the ethical and legal community to make sure it can integrate into society."
Caulfield says that elite athletes, who are often highly motivated risk takers, may well be
the first population to try various gene therapies to get an edge in sport.

"Virtually all doping techniques were developed for valid medical use," he says. "It's always going to be a challenge to keep ahead of athletes."