Brit football club tests players' DNA to find who is more injury-prone

A Premier League football club in Britain has DNA tested its players to find out which players are more prone to injuries, a scientist has claimed.

According to The Sunday Times, Marios Kambouris, a leading molecular geneticist and assistant professor at Yale University School of Medicine, claims to have carried out the groundbreaking research into common football injuries for an unnamed club.

"I have no idea which players they were but there were good genes in there, things which would positively affect their performance, such as their ability to have better aerobic respiration, which would give them more stamina on the pitch," the Daily Mail quoted him as saying.

The study profiled more than 100 genetic mutations linked to an increased chance of injuries such as ruptured tendons.

Swabs were taken from inside the players'' mouths and the DNA placed on a small testing device called a biochip.

This had been coated with the genetic mutations for which they were being tested.

The players'' mutant genes ''linked up'' with those already on the biochip and this in turn allowed the scientists to read the footballers'' genetic profile under a laser beam and assess the risk of injury.