Karine Lalonde works at the Doping Control Laboratory of the INRS–Institut Armand-Frappier Research Centre.
After earning her PhD in 2014, Lalonde joined the Doping Control Laboratory of the Quebec City-based INRS–Institut Armand-Frappier Research Centre. Thanks to her expertise in chemical analysis, in 2016 she had the chance to travel to Brazil during the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympics to test the world’s best athletes for traces of performance-enhancing drugs.
Lalonde is one of a handful of people in the world trained in the use of Gas Chromatography Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry (GCIRMS), a very long name for a very precise procedure used to identify the origin of organic compounds.
“We used to do it on environmental samples at school. There aren’t many GCIRMS experts in Quebec, or even around the world’ says Lalonde.
“It’s a technique that is extremely specialized, and they use it in sports chemistry to detect doping with compounds that can also be created in the human body.”
Through this technique, Lalonde can recognize if an athlete has injected him- or herself with testosterone. The naturally produced hormone, when administered externally, acts as a performance enhancer — allowing athletes to run faster, jump higher, be stronger. Such use of testosterone is banned by the International Olympic Committee.
Coming from a background of environmental chemistry, Lalonde admits that she didn’t expect to find herself in the field of sports chemistry. It was during her research with Yves Gélinas, a professor in Concordia’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, that she developed the key skills that led to her career at Armand-Frappier.
“My PhD provided a great experience for the managerial side of things. You’re not just responsible for your own project — you also have to manage lab inventory, other people’s projects and other things,” Lalonde says.
“Now I’m getting into a partly managerial position at Armand-Frappier, dealing with other people’s projects, instrument time and lab inventory. It’s similar to what I did at Concordia — different but similar.”
The main difference is obvious. Instead of studying environmental samples, Lalonde now works on biological samples from some of the best athletes in the world.
Having that “very specialized experience” allowed her to get a foot in the door, she says. “I don’t think there were many people in Quebec who speak French and can work with this technique and who had just finished a PhD.”
It turns out that her predecessor at Armand-Frappier is Alexandre Ouellet, BSc (biochem.) 04, PhD (chem.) 10, who studied at the same lab at Concordia as Lalonde did, graduating a few years before her. Ouellet recommended her for the job.
As she says, the field of stable isotopes “is a very, very small world.”
A scientist at the Olympics
Lalonde was one of 30 scientists who volunteered to help run the anti-doping efforts at last summer’s Olympics.
“It was really interesting to see the whole Olympic experience,” say Lalonde. “What happens is that a lab typically runs about 10,000 samples per year. During the Olympics, they receive 6,000 in three months. So we were swamped.”
Karine Lalonde’s photo ID for 2016 Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympics Games, where she volunteered for the anti-doping efforts.