Nanotechnology has illustrated significant potentials in biomolecular-sensing applications; particularly its introduction to anti-doping detection is of great importance. Illicit recreational drugs, substances that can be potentially abused, and drugs with dosage limitations according to the prohibited lists announced by the World Antidoping Agency (WADA) are becoming of increasing interest to forensic chemists. In this review, the theoretical principles of optical biosensors based on noble metal nanoparticles, and the transduction mechanism of commonly-applied plasmonic biosensors are covered. We review different classes of recently-developed plasmonic biosensors for analytic determination and quantification of illicit drugs in anti-doping applications. The important classes of illicit drugs include anabolic steroids, opioids, stimulants, and peptide hormones. The main emphasis is on the advantages that noble metal nanoparticles bring to optical biosensors for signal enhancement and the development of highly sensitive (label-free) biosensors. In the near future, such optical biosensors may be an invaluable substitute for conventional anti-doping detection methods such as chromatography-based approaches, and may even be commercialized for routine anti-doping tests.

纳米技术在生物分子传感应用中展现了巨大的潜力；尤其是其在反兴奋剂检测中的引入具有重要意义。非法娱乐药物、可能被滥用的物质以及世界反兴奋剂机构 (WADA) 公布的禁用清单中规定剂量限制的药物正引起法医化学家越来越多的兴趣。本文介绍了基于贵金属纳米粒子的光学生物传感器的理论原理以及常用的等离子体生物传感器的转导机制。我们回顾了最近开发的不同类别的等离子体生物传感器，用于反兴奋剂应用中非法药物的分析测定和定量。重要的非法药物类别包括合成代谢类固醇、阿片类药物、兴奋剂和肽激素。主要强调贵金属纳米粒子为光学生物传感器带来的信号增强优势以及高灵敏度（无标记）生物传感器的开发。在不久的将来，这种光学生物传感器可能成为传统反兴奋剂检测方法（例如基于色谱的方法）的宝贵替代品，甚至可能商业化用于常规反兴奋剂测试。