SEOUL, South Korea – Laboratories associated with racing have developed tests and methods that will be able to detect illegal gene doping and gene editing in racehorses, according to speakers on Wednesday at the Asian Racing Conference in Seoul, South Korea. The speakers, who both appeared on an afternoon panel dedicated to a discussion of gene doping, said that the tests and methods would be critical in the near future when gene doping and gene editing are expected to transform the fight to catch cheaters in both human and equine sports. While most regulatory officials do not believe that there have been serious attempts to use both techniques in racing, that day will come, said Natasha Hamilton, the director of Racing Australia’s Equine Genetics Research Laboratory, and racing needs to be ready. “I always hear, ‘Do we really need to worry about this?’” said Hamilton. “And, ‘This is really high science-fiction stuff. I don’t think this is really going to happen.’ But the real question is, ‘Can we afford not to worry about this?’ We need to make sure this never really happens.” Both gene doping and gene editing involve modifying the body’s DNA to either temporarily produce a performance-enhancing effect or permanently change DNA so that the person or animal enjoys a superior gene throughout its lifetime. Both techniques have already been used successfully in a variety of fields, mostly for beneficial effects, but the potential exists for the techniques to also be used to get an edge over competitors. Just prior to the 2016 Olympics, as a warning shot, the World Anti-Doping Agency publicly announced that it had developed a test to detect gene-doping for the enhanced production of erythropoietin. No positive tests for the technique were announced for those games. Hamilton said that her lab has developed a technique to screen for five different equine genes that may have been targeted for doping, using a method that compares the original DNA of the gene to the synthesized gene that is created by the doping process. The test costs under $30, Hamilton said, and can be conducted in a day. Further tests are expected to be developed to detect attempts to dope other genes. Testing for gene editing is an altogether different matter, according to Teruaki Tozaki, a technical advisor to Japan’s Laboratory of Racing Chemistry, but the alteration of the genetic code can be detected provided that blood samples of horses are collected at the time of birth. The DNA in each sample can then be sequenced and compared to the DNA sequence of a sample pulled at a later date from the horse to see if the DNA has been altered by a gene edit. Gene editing has become significantly easier and far less expensive since the recent development of the CRISPR/cas9 technique. Although Tozaki said the technique to detect gene editing is not difficult, it will take funding and protocol changes in racing industries around the world in order to properly collect and store the samples, along with the training and hiring of qualified personnel. The descriptions of the methods and tests took place on a day when the Asian Racing Conference focused on several issues related to integrity and horse welfare. A panel just following the gene doping panel discussed recent research into the identification of injury risk factors for horses and the stresses that create weaknesses in bone that can lead to catastrophic breakdowns. Dr. Tim Parkin, an epidemiologist at the University of Glasgow who conducts analyses of injury data for the U.S. racing industry, said that he is confident that risk-factor models can be continually improved provided the racing world collects as much data as possible on its racehorse populations, using the term “platform” to describe related sets of data. He said that the work could be especially beneficial in Asian countries, considering that the racing authorities in those countries typically collect records of veterinary treatments of horses, unlike the U.S., where veterinary records are considered the confidential property of the veterinarian and owner of the horse. “Most Asian racing jurisdictions do indeed cover all the major data platforms,” said Parkin. “So in this particular part of the world we have a real chance to lead, to produce data that will have an impact on the ground.” Chris Whitton, the head of an equine orthopedic research group at the University of Melbourne, Australia, appeared on the panel with Parkin and described the most recent results of his extensive research on modeling limb loading of racehorses and the process by which bone is weakened and built back up. Like other researchers, Whitton has found that bone is weakened considerably by heavy repetitions of fast exercise, and that the only way to build the bone back up is through prolonged rest. Unfortunately, according to Whitton, his team has not yet discovered the ideal cycles between exercise and rest that would lead to better outcomes for racehorses, but the research is heading in that direction. The team has also not yet been able to discover an efficient field method of detecting whether a horse’s bones have been weakened to the point of putting the horse at risk, but the team is also hopeful that its research will one day lead to that result. “We do know that it’s the training that is producing the problem, so we need to get smarter so we can learn to do it so that we’re not creating injuries,” Whitton said. Earlier in the day, several speakers discussed how racing can best design programs to deter and catch cheaters, with recommendations on educating participants about how to spot cheating and putting in place regulatory systems that can properly adjudicate attempts at race-fixing and the use of performance-enhancing drugs. One of the speakers, Jack Anderson, the Director of Sports Law at the University of Melbourne, said that one of the rising levels of concern among those who study integrity systems is the recent reliance by regulatory bodies on bet-taking companies to flag suspicious betting patterns and alert authorities to their suspicions, given the heavy negative impact that corruption can have on their businesses. Those companies typically use algorithms to generate the red flags, though the algorithms themselves are not always made available to regulators, Anderson said. “So increasingly the question being asked by lawyers and by people in our profession is, What is the algorithm measuring, what is your definition of a red flag?” Anderson said. Anderson said that every sport in every corner of the world has to be vigilant against corruption, citing the $5 billion valuation of the Indian Premier League, a cricket league, in 2010. After three years of corruption allegations, the league’s value had fallen to $2.9 billion, Anderson said. “You’re not just talking about the integrity of the sport,” Anderson said. “You’re talking about the integrity of the brand.” (Editor’s note: The Korean Racing Authority, which is the host of the Asian Racing Conference, paid for the reporter’s travel to Seoul and hotel accommodations there.)