USADA’s Chief Science Officer, Dr. Larry Bowers, and his son Dr. Geoff Bowers will be presenting, independently, at the American Chemical Society (ACS) spring meeting in Denver later in March. The Denver National Meeting and Exposition features the “who’s who” in chemistry, including the Bowers boys as well as six Nobel laureates. Topics range from bioelectricity to operation of a craft brewery, and from the history of art and technology of glass to single molecule biophysical chemistry.
At the event, Dr. Larry Bowers will be sitting on a symposium panel discussing the deterrence of performance-enhancing drugs in sport and the role that science plays. The panel will also feature Bill Bock, USADA’s General Counsel, and Rich Young, attorney and partner at Bryan Cave, who has formerly represented USADA and assisted with writing the World Anti-Doping Code. The group will also showcase slides and information from Dr. Daniel Eichner, Executive Director at The Sports Medicine Research and Testing Laboratory (SMRTL), a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) accredited laboratory in the United States.
Overall, they will cover the history of anti-doping in the Olympic movement, challenges among the international anti-doping community, the research aspect of deterrence, and how investigations relate to testing. Dr. Eichner’s information will cover the lab’s perspective on testing and the WADA International Standards for Laboratories, achieving consistent results amongst labs, and staying ahead of athletes who cheat by analyzing supplements and designer drugs.
Dr. Geoff Bowers was invited to talk as part of the Division of Geochemistry. He’ll speak about molecular-scale interactions of chemicals in clays. He is an Assistant Professor in the Chemistry department at Alfred University, New York, where he teaches physical chemistry. Alfred is a leading university in undergraduate research. In addition to Geoff’s talk, two of his undergraduate students will be presenting on their work in a separate, student portion of the ACS national meeting.
The ACS hosts national meetings twice a year in various cities around the U.S., with each attracting over 11,000 chemists, chemical engineers, academicians, graduate and undergraduate students, and other related professionals. It is a rare occurrence to have two family members speaking at such a high-level conference on the various applications of chemistry.