

Bonds of a single charge of obstruction of justice Wednesday, Larry Bowers had been involved with helping federal prosecutors understand the drugs involved in the complex steroids ring.

BALCO helped distribute performance-enhancing drugs undetectable in traditional drug testing.

Perhaps no athlete involved in the case drew more attention than Major League Baseball's home run king, and federal prosecutors called Bowers -- a 1968 York Suburban graduate -- to explain the evolution of anabolic steroids. One of 25 witnesses called by the prosecution, Bowers presented textbook-like testimony in March about performance-enhancing drugs including "the clear," "the cream" and HGH. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency's chief scientist explained that his agency anonymously received a syringe with trace amounts of a liquid known as "the clear" -- or THG -- in the summer of 2003.

Scientists eventually developed a recipe for the drug and later developed a urine test to detect the steroid in 2003.

Bowers also testified in the case against track coach Trevor Graham, who also was linked to the BALCO investigation and sentenced to one year of home confinement for lying to investigators.

"This is kind of the end of the line for the BALCO thing," Bowers said when reached by phone.

"I really don't have a lot of feelings about it. Personally I feel like I did my job, and the jury did their job."

Now working in Colorado Springs, Bowers received his received his A.B. in chemistry from Franklin & Marshall College in 1972 and his Ph.D. in analytical chemistry from the University of Georgia.

The onetime head of Indiana University's Athletic Drug Testing and Toxicology Laboratory, the International Olympic Committee selected Bowers and his staff to organize and implement the substance-screening process for the 2002 Winter Olympics.

Involved as an expert witness in court cases since his days at Indiana in the 1990s, he brushed aside numerous attempts by Bonds' attorneys to discredit the scientific proof of side effects related to steroids.

"Bowers is an immovable scientific object on the stand," reporter Howard Mintz of the San Jose Mercury News wrote on March 30.


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