Anti-doping research founder and professor emeritus at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine’s Dept. of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology, Don Catlin, is probably the world’s most foremost sports scientist. For 25 years now, he has been fighting against steroid use in sports and is working to bring back the integrity of clean athletics. Founded in 2005, Catlin’s Anti-Doping Research laboratory is a two-story nondescript building that he describes as a part grassroots campaign, think tank and collaboration. Catlin’s fight against steroids in sports, however, dates back to as early as 1984, when Los Angeles was awarded the Summer Olympics.

During that time, there was no drug-testing facility for steroid screening operating in the US and the widespread feeling among other countries was that US athletes were probably doping because nobody cared enough to test and deter them from using steroids. To address the problem, the 1981 Medical Commission of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) asked Don Catlin, a young UCLA professor at that time, to oversee the new steroid testing program.

Catlin had done similar work in the military and it was just logical that the emissaries from the committee would ask him to do the job. At that time, Catlin was at his 10th year as a professor at UCLA and was (and still is) an avid sports fan.

However, he did not have adequate knowledge about the prevalence of steroid use in athletics, especially because at that time it was completely unknown and was considered a non-entity. Because it seemed that there was nothing to accomplish in drug testing in sports, and as advised by his department chairman, Catlin was persuaded to reject IOC’s initial offer. However, the Committee was persistent and told Catlin that he was greatly needed by the IOC. In addition, they will also give a big grant to UCLA; that was enough to convince Catlin and his colleagues to accept the job.

The institution that came from the grant was the UCLA Olympic Analytical Laboratory, which Catlin ran for the last 25 years. It is the only lab of its kind and the US and has been utilized by the Olympics, MLB, NFL, NCAA, and the government on developing and researching drug-testing programs.

Catlin said that they are trying to play catch-up all the time as new kinds of designer steroids and illegal performance-enhancing drugs that are harder to detect keep on popping up every year. Under his tenure, Catlin oversaw and has been responsible for a lot of significant breakthroughs in anti-doping. These include the report of darbepoetin alfa, an EPO drug, as a doping agent used in the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. A lot of athletes were banned from competition as Catlin anticipated that the drug would be popular in the 2002 games and developed a test in time.

Perhaps the UCLA lab’s greatest achievement was the discovery of tetrahydrogestrinone, a steroid popularly known as “The Clear” and was at the center of the Barry Bonds steroid scandal. The discovery of THG was monumental for Catlin’s lab and for the long battle against steroids in sports.

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