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The completion of the first draft of the Human Genome Map in 2000 was widely heralded as the promise and future of genetics-based medicines and therapies - so much so that pundits began referring to the new century as 'The Century of Genetics'. Moreover, definitive assertions about the overwhelming similarities of all humans' DNA (99.9 percent) by the leaders of the Human Genome Project were trumpeted as the end of racial thinking about racial taxonomies of human genetic differences. But the first decade of the new century brought un welcomed surprises. First, gene therapies turned out to be far more complicated than any had anticipated - and instead the pharmaceutical industry turned to a focus on drugs that might be 'related' to population differences based upon genetic markers. While the language of 'personalized medicine' dominated this frame, research on racially and ethnically designated populations differential responsiveness to drugs dominated the empirical work in the field. Ancestry testing and 'admixture research' would play an important role in a new kind of molecular reification of racial categories. Moreover, the capacity of the super-computer to map differences reverberated into personal identification that would affect both the criminal justice system and forensic science, and generate new levels of concern about personal privacy. Social scientists in general, and sociologists in particular, have been caught short by these developments - relying mainly on assertions that racial categories are socially constructed, regionally and historically contingent, and politically arbitrary. While these assertions are true, the imprimatur of scientific legitimacy has shifted the burden, since now 'admixture research' can claim that its results get at the 'reality' of human differentiation, not the admittedly flawed social constructions of racial categories. Yet what was missing from this framing of the problem: 'admixture research' is itself based upon socially constructed categories of race. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to the seven authors who offered comments on my paper, I have tried to synthesize and distill common themes. Foremost among them is the charge to look forward, not only to consider probable developments and implications for how this 'molecular reinscription of race' will unfold in forensics and clinical medicine, but as well to suggest how the discipline of Sociology can and should respond. But as several of the commentators noted, this is not just a matter for a single discipline, but should be fertile ground for coordinated empirical investigation by such fields as the Social Studies of Science, Anthropology of Medicine, and Critical Race Theory. For sociologically informed reasons, social scientists should be wary of the unanticipated consequences of collaboration with human molecular geneticists who come to the table deploying databases with pre-fabricated categories of race, thereby poised to provide genetic explanations of social outcomes based upon race and ethnicity. A cautionary note is provided explaining how and why some joint projects are advised, some are ill-advised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A response is provided to the article "A post-genomic surprise. The molecular reinscription of race in science, law and medicine," by Troy Duster, which appears within the issue. The article discusses Duster's perspective on the relationship between molecular biology, DNA, genetics and race, including his opinion that rather than focus on alleged racial differences from genetics, social and culture histories of racial and ethnic groups should be researched. An overview of the relationship between health and race, including in regard to health disparities and the role that diet plays in causing diabetes, is provided.