New 'Dilute-and-Shoot' Method Boosts Doping Detection Speed and Scope

Traditional anti-doping analysis often involves complex sample preparation and multiple analytical methods, making it time-consuming and resource-intensive. The increasing number and diversity of doping agents present a significant challenge for laboratories aiming to ensure fair play in sports. There is a critical need for faster, more comprehensive, and sensitive methods that can simultaneously detect a broad spectrum of illicit performance-enhancing drugs.

The developed LC-MS/MS method demonstrated excellent analytical performance, achieving rapid detection times and high sensitivity for a wide array of doping agents. It successfully identified over 100 different compounds within a single analytical run, significantly expanding the scope compared to traditional methods. The 'dilute-and-shoot' approach reduced sample preparation time by approximately 80%, allowing for a sample throughput of less than 5 minutes per sample. The method achieved detection limits (LODs) for most targeted substances in the low nanogram per milliliter (ng/mL) range, with over 90% of compounds having LODs below 5 ng/mL, making it highly suitable for routine anti-doping control. Furthermore, the method exhibited high specificity, with minimal matrix interference, ensuring reliable identification of prohibited substances even at low concentrations, and showed good linearity across relevant calibration ranges, confirming its robustness for real-world application.