Narrator: This is Science Today. With the recent completion of the Human Genome Project, scientists are striving to create a socially aware dialogue on the impacts of genomics. Patricia Benner, a professor of physiological nursing at the University of California, San Francisco, explains the importance of bridging the social and the scientific in this new phase.

Benner: If we have the genomic science captivate us in a such way that it is the only solution that shows up, it ignores the social, environmental influences and causes that should be attended to create a good life.

Narrator: On the other hand, Benner says an extreme environmentalist position ignores the possibility that might be addressed at the genomic level of research and intervention.

Benner: And it is here that I think the genomic revolution recapitulates that problem that we've had in regular medicine - to separate the body from the mind and isolate the medical from the social.

Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.