Steroids designer

There is considerable interest in understanding the structural bases for these differences because this information would be very useful in designing steroids and other compounds to selectively regulate the activity of one or more steroid dehydrogenases as a means of treating hormone-responsive diseases. There is precedent for this kind of treatment in the use of licorice extract from the root of the plant Glycyrrhiza glabra [15,27] to treat Addison s disease,... 

Salvador, J.P., F. Sanchez-Baeza, and M.P Marco 2007. Preparation of antibodies for the designer steroid tetrahydrogestrinone and development of an Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay for human urine analysis. Anal. Chem. 79 3734—3740. 

Dwain Chambers, the European 100 metres sprint champion, was found guilty in February 2004 of taking a designer steroid , THG, and banned from athletics for 2 years. He appealed on the grounds that THG was chemically related to banned substances but was itself not a material that constituted a doping offence. 

Figure 26. (Bio)mesogenic order-disorder patterns rather than geometric anisotropies as general preconditions for the appearance of mesophases a) classical thermotropic cyanobiphenyl nematic [25 a, 51e] and thermotropically designed steroid hormone cholesteric [17 a, c, d, 26 f, 51 a, s, u] b) protein-j3-sheet simulative diacylhydrazine smectic [17 a, c, d, 26f, 511] c) hexaalkanoyloxybenzene discoid [28 a, 51c] ending the century of rod-like dominance d) lyotropic poly(L-glutamic acid) [51 d, 52 k, 1] changing with an alkyl-disorder shell from lyotropic to thermotropic [58e] e) ds A-RNA lyotropic [52n-w, 75] f) am-photropic(L-Lys) /RNA recognition complex [17,18, 75],...

M. W. F. Nielen, T. F. H. Bovee, et al.. Urine testing for designer steroids by liquid chromatography with androgen bioassay detection and electrospray quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry identification. Anal. Chem. 78, 424-431 (2006). 

This general approach is not permanent, but each time the laboratories improve the efficacy of the detection procedure, cheaters immediately turn into any possible remaining loopholes. As a recent example, tetrahydrogestrinone (THG), a new designer steroid produced specifically for the exclusive purpose to improve athletic performances, posed a real identification challenge to the laboratories. The development or the implementation of rapid, informative, and reliable systematic screening tests, which have the required sensitivity and can withstand the scrutiny of cross-examination at the Court, is constantly needed. 

Explain what is meant by the term "undetectable" in re- ferring to a designer steroid. Obviously, it is a misnomer... 

Anabolic steroids, such as stanozolol, nandrolone, and tetrahydrogestrinone have the same effect on the body as testosterone, but they are more stable, so they are not metabolized as quickly. Tetrahydrogestrinone (also called THG or The Clear), the performance-enhancing drug used by track star Marion Jones during the 2000 Sydney Olympics, was considered a designer steroid because it was initially undetected in urine tests for doping. After its chemical structure and properties were determined, it was added to the list of banned anabolic steroids in 2004. 

Sekera, M.H., Ahrens, B.D., Chang, Y.C., Starcevic, B., Geoigakopoulos, C. and Catlin, D.H., Another designer steroid discovery, synthesis, and detection of madoP in urine. Rapid Commun. Mass Spectrom., 19(6), 781-784 (2005). 

Steroids have had a major beneficial effect on human well-being, as medicines and in the control of fertility. However, abuse of steroids as performance-enhancing drugs in competitive athletics has surfaced occasionally. Thus, the sports world was shaken when illicit use of the designer steroid tetrahydrogestrinone (THG) was discovered in 2003— designed to avoid detection in doping tests. 

Peihaps it was inevitable, but synthesis has also empowered those with unprincipled motivations. Illicit drags, agents for biological weaponry, and designer steroids, although different in the magnitude and focus of their impact, all serve to human detriment (Figure 16). 

Georgakopoulos, C.G., Vonaparti, A., Stamou, M., et oL (2007) Preventive doping control analysis Liquid and gas chromatography time-of-flight mass spectrometry for detection of designer steroids. Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry, 21,2439-2446. 

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