Catching doping athletes is not just about bringing cheaters to courts of justice. Doping is dangerous and can be lethal. And performance enhancement doesn’t only affect the athletes involved: It cheats the fans. As Friedmann sums it up, “Are you watching an army of molecular biologists and chemists at work, or are you watching truly beautiful human effort?”

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Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay (rmukhopadhyay@asbmb.org) is the senior science writer for ASBMB Today and the technical editor for The Journal of Biological Chemistry.