Canadian researchers working in conjunction with the World Anti-Doping Agency announced Tuesday that they have discovered a new “designer” steroid developed along the lines of THG, the drug at the center of the BALCO case in the U.S.

Acting upon an anonymous tip e-mailed to WADA officials this past summer, scientists said they have reproduced a drug that appears to have been designed to avoid detection in standard drug tests. WADA science director Olivier Rabin and Christiane Ayotte, director of Montreal's anti-doping lab, told reporters in a conference call on Tuesday that the agency can now test for the substance they call desoxy-methyl-testosterone, or DMT.

Both, however, said that there is no evidence that the drug has yet been used by athletes, claiming that the discovery amounts to a sort of preemptive strike against drug cheats.

“Probably in this case we are ahead of the dopers,” Rabin said. “This shows to the dopers how serious we are.”

“We believe this was developed for the sole purpose of doping in sport,” he added. “We now have proof that THG was not a unique case. We now have proof that there are other designer drugs.”

Research began in earnest last June after WADA received an anonymous e-mail suggesting that anti-doping officials examine the contents of items seized by customs officers in a stop at the border earlier in the year.

Ayotte said that customs officials cooperated with the request and subsequent analysis of one “oily liquid” in particular resulted in the discovery of DMT. Analysis showed the new steroid combination exhibits a high level of sophistication employed in its manufacture. Ayotte said that the drug contains a combination of potentially dangerous substances that would require very careful handling.

Once the drug was uncovered, detection would be a relatively simple process, Rabin said. Toward that end, the Montreal lab re-tested several thousand urine samples, including those from this summer’s Olympics in Athens, but found no indication of DMT use in any.

“We think this substance hasn't been used,” she said. “We would have found it if it had been. For us DMT was caught in time.”

Both researchers said their organizations were on the trail of other designer drugs, but declined to offer further details.

WADA president Dick Pound has often said such preemptive efforts are a major priority for the organization and the more than $5million (U.S.) it spends on research and development. In aninterview with VeloNews late last year, Pound said that he hopes "that we can eventually be in the position of being ahead of the curve at times, long before people know what it is we know, so that we can come up to them and say 'Hello. Guess what you just took and guess what we just found and don't let the door hit you on the ass on your way out.'"