Projets de recherche

This project aims to conduct the first prospective systemic risk assessment for inadvertent doping via supplements in sport.

The project aims to advance scientific knowledge and understanding about the role of sport-specific values in fostering moral attitudes and emotions towards doping, and accordingly inform values-based education practices. The project’s objective is to adapt the Values & Moral Attitudes Model.

The study will examine the role of coaches and parents in promoting anti–doping behaviors among the youth in grassroots sports, investigating knowledge, attitudes of this population, while also exploring predictive factors of doping that can be influenced by education programs.

A two-phase project examining athletes' experiences following an Adverse Analytical Finding and Anti-Doping Rule Violation. Phase one will use athlete researchers to interview sanctioned athletes. The results will inform phase two, a community based Participatory Research (CBPR) approach discuss how the relationship of sanctioned athletes to sport, clean sport and anti-doping is shaped and how rehabilitation and space for reparation can be incorporated into anti-doping.

Code: 22C12MH

An emerging concern regarding the misuse of anabolic doping substances in sports is “muscle memory” – as skeletal muscle that has previously been exposed to an anabolic prohibited substance may adapt more readily to retraining. While this phenomenon has been demonstrated in rodents, the underlying mechanisms as well as whether this applies to humans remain unknown. The relevance of studying muscle memory induced by prohibited substances is clear when considering the current anti-doping regulations. One can imagine a scenario where an athlete is banned from competitive events for a few years, but upon return to competitive sport still enjoys an advantage in retraining potential because of anabolic compound-induced muscle memory.

This project will elucidate whether prior treatment of the two commonly misused prohibited anabolic compounds, clenbuterol or testosterone, induces muscle memory and thus improves the hypertrophic response to subsequent resistance training. To this end, two longitudinal randomized placebo-controlled trials will be conducted in healthy volunteers undergoing periods of resistance training. The project will utilize state-of-the-art methodologies to address aspects of myocellular addition, hypertrophy and myocellular reprogramming in muscle biopsies collected during the trials.

Code: 22D05KC

With the increasing participation of female athletes in international competitions, there is growing interest in the specificities of the elite female athlete. Indeed, the elite female athlete is subject to a menstrual cycle, with huge variations in estrogen and progesterone concentrations during the cycle. A relatively large number of elite female athletes suffers from menstrual disorders, often due to intensive training and eating disorders, with inhibition of their hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis, resulting in very low estradiol and progesterone levels. Finally, approximately 1 in 2 high-level female athletes uses hormonal contraception, the estrogen-progestin pill (OOP) being the most frequently used. Female sex hormone levels therefore fluctuate greatly in elite female athletes, with likely a significant impact on blood and urine steroid profiles.

However, most of the time, there is only an approximate estimation of the cycle phase, without direct blood female sex hormones and precursors analysis and if any, on a punctual way. We therefore propose to dose these hormones on a longitudinal way in elite non-hyperandrogenic female athletes, taking into account the duration of the MC, menstrual disorders or the use of OOP, in order to assess their direct impact on the blood steroid profile, in particular on testosterone (TES) and androstenedione (4-AEN), the target compounds selected by WADA for the blood steroid profile. As the environment of the athlete directly modulates the secretion of these female sex hormones, and consequently the steroid profiles, we will in parallel quantify the training load and food intake thanks to questionnaires and investigate the blood level of TSH, T3, prolactin, leptin, DHEA and cortisol, as well as the body composition during the different hormonal status.

Code: 22D02RF

The goal of our research is to investigate the impact of altitude training on blood values in elite athletes preparing for a major competition, with special focus on the biomarkers considered in the framework of the Athlete Biological Passport (ABP). Testing the hypothesis that hypoxic training is related to hematological variations would allow the present ABP model to be refined, and its efficacy strengthened. Our study would challenge the complexity of confounding factors affecting the interpretation of the ABP in elite athletes. In addition, based on the current development of a multi-parametric model previously validated in elite cyclists to compare inferred and actual plasma volume (PV) variations, investigation of the potential confounding effects of altitude exposure, and pre-competition tapering phase, can provide additional experimental evidence towards future improvements of the ABP.

The main objectives of this study are the following: firstly, this study will allow to further investigate the hematological variables of the ABP before, during, after a 3-week altitude training camp and on days before and after a major competition (20 days after the return to see level); furthermore, the potential confounding effect of hypoxic exposure will be evaluated by measuring PV changes or inferring the latter changes from serum biomarkers that are sensitive to PV changes. Overall, our study aims at improving the ABP in its current form and at evaluating the possible implementation of additional biomarkers.

Code: T22M01RTRV - Part 2

12 hours starting from any dose”, which is considered as the cut-off between maximal therapeutic dosagesfor athletes benefiting from a therapeutic use exemption and doses at which a doping effect could begin to be expected from systemic exposure [8]. The WADA established a urinary concentration

Code: T22M01RTRV - Part 1

Salbutamolwas included in the prohibited list of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in 2004. While systemic salbutamol is banned, inhaled salbutamol is permitted but with dosage regimen restrictions. The dose should indeed not exceed “1600 µg over 24 hours in divided doses not to exceed 800 µg over.

Code: 22D06MT

Several cases of so-called sample swapping have been detected in recent years. During sample swapping an athlete substitutes the presumable positive doping control sample by another negative urine sample in order to circumvent an adverse analytical finding. For the exchange of urine, a sample from the same individual or from a different individual may be used. While the latter can result in a significantly different steroid profile, employing a urine sample from the same individual collected prior to administration of a doping agent will not show any differences in the steroid profile. Here it can be expected that the stored clean sample will be used several times and that this may result in steroid profiles with an atypical similarity. Two cases of this type of sample swapping have already been detected, but only by chance as the similar samples were analyzed in the same laboratory in a timely manner. 
The aim of this research project is the development of a screening tool based on machine learning and artificial intelligence which will enable to detect steroid profiles with an atypical similarity in all steroid profiles determined world-wide in different accredited doping control laboratories. The developed software will be able to search within the existing profiles for similar ones and will be trained to compared new entries to the dataset to existing ones in order to indentify highly similar patterns. Employing artificial intelligence will enable to train the software to become highly sensitive, selective and robust. In order to confirm potentially similar samples to belong to the same athlete, DNA analysis of these urine samples will be applied where applicable.