COME the next Olympics in 2004, it may be possible to screen all the athletes
for drugs, not just a few picked out for random tests. A new lab-on-a-chip
detection system could test thousands of samples in hours, probing each for
dozens of illegal substances.
The system could remove the stigma and unfairness of being singled out for
testing, while the certainty of being screened should serve as a deterrent for
would-be cheats. “It would create a level playing field for everyone,” says
Roisin Molloy of Randox Laboratories, the company which developed the Evidence
system in Crumlin, County Antrim. “The…
