DENVER-
Dr. Don Catlin, one of the world’s leading anti-doping experts, is leaving the UCLA Olympic lab he founded to devote his time to creating better tests to catch drug cheats.
Catlin has developed numerous tests to detect performance-enhancing drugs and helped expose hundreds of cheating athletes. His discovery of THG, a once-undetectable steroid, was a key factor in the BALCO case.
“Sport should be natural,” Catlin, a UCLA professor of molecular and medical pharmacology, said in a telephone interview Tuesday. “I had no idea what was going on in the beginning 25 years ago, but it became clear this was the thing to do, a worthwhile endeavor, and sport needed people with my skills to come in and help.”
Catlin’s decision was first reported by The Washington Post.
The 68-year-old said his newly created Anti-Doping Research Institute in Los Angeles will focus on improving tests for human growth hormone and the endurance enhancer EPO (erythropoietin).
Attorney Howard Jacobs specializes in representing athletes in doping cases and has both used Catlin as an expert witness and cross-examined him in court. Jacobs said Catlin’s “done a good job of closing the gap” between those developing undetectable drugs and the anti-doping community.
