---

Traditional nursing education often becomes segregated into specialty areas. Genetics offers an excellent opportunity to meld multiple disciplines in nursing education, including health assessment, pharmacology and treatment regimes, maternal/newborn, pediatric and adult health, and nutrition. For example, Nutrigenomics is the nutrition-based approach to patient-centered health care. It focuses on individual genetic variations, which affect diet as a risk factor for disease. Using optimal diet/ micronutrients as an approach to adjusting human metabolism may minimize damage to chromosomal and mitochondrial DNA. Interventions incorporating nutritional status, nutritional requirements and genotype offer a realistic approach to modifying and/or eliminating disease symptoms. Genotypes with disproportionately high incidences of chronic diseases would benefit from an emphasis on family history and the Nutrigeonomics' approach to personalized health. The functional foods industry is already using these emerging concepts to offer new products for consumers. Oncology research and therapeutics are pioneering genetic innovations. Genetics research has facilitated the refinement of diagnostics and risk factors. This has led to new treatment regimes such as monoclonal antibodies. Genotypic markers are being used in the treatment for acute mylocytic leukemia. Genetic screening for BRAC1 and BRAC2 have highlighted the ethical issues nurses will encounter. Changes from the traditional chemotherapy/radiation regimes necessitate nurse's understanding the basis for the treatments. Incorporating the science associated with Genomics into nursing school curricula and community-based educational programs, as it develops, will prepare nursing faculty and students to use evidence-based approaches to patient centered health care. Nurses are on the frontline in implementation of genetic research findings in direct patient care. Our responsibility is to serve as the bridge between the scientific community and the patient, integrate current knowledge, educate consumers to understand and ask for appropriate healthcare, and assist in tailoring treatment regimes that are personalized for the patient.