Our history
A Drug Control and Teaching Centre at King’s College London was established in 1978, in association with the Sports Council. It was the first ever human sports drug-testing laboratory outside of an Olympic Games. The need for such a centre had been emphasised during the controversy surrounding the Scottish Football Team at the World Cup and the College was by now becoming well-known for its expertise in this field.
The opening was particularly timely, allowing the Centre to be utilised heavily by UK organisations in the run up to the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow. The Centre went on to become a global success.
Today the Drug Control Centre at King's is one of the world's foremost World Anti-Doping Agency accredited laboratories, with vast experience in successfully delivering analysis for major games. The Centre is currently contracted to undertake the drug testing of athletes under the UK Sport Anti-Doping Testing Programme in the run up to the 2012 Olympic Games.
In 2010, Waters Corporation, the major US manufacturer of scientific analytical instrumentation, welcomed the Drug Control Centre as a ‘Center of Innovation’. This programme is a corporate initiative that recognises and supports the efforts of scientists facilitating breakthroughs in health and life science research, food safety, environmental protection, sports medicine and many other areas. Currently King’s is one of only five ‘Centers of Innovation’ globally.
For more about the history of Forensic Science & Drug Monitoring at King’s, please see Contributions to Biomedicine.