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Gregor Mendel

 

            Gregor Johann Mendel, the "father of genetics", was born in July of 1822, in Heizendorf, Austria. He was born to Anton and Rosine Mendel, who were peasants. He was the second of their three children. Early on, Gregor was educated in reading, writing, math, science, natural history, horticulture, and beekeeping. Then, in 1843, Gregor studied at the St. Thomas Monastery of the Augustinian Order in Brunn. He was ordained into the priesthood in 1847. He was a priest up until about 1851, when he went to the University of Vienna to train to be a teacher. While at the university he began the research that he is known for today.
             Gregor Mendel is a well-known biologist today for the research on genetics he did many years ago. He started his work in the early 1850's. He developed the theories of heredity, sometimes called Mendelism. His first law tells about dominant and recessive traits, it is called the Law of Segregation. His second law is the Law of Independent Assortment. It says that traits are inherited independently from one another. He did his experiments with pea plants, and he noticed that there was a ratio every time. Mixing with one trait resulted with a 3:1 ratio, and mixing two traits showed a 9:3:3:1 ratio. His choice of pea plants was a good one, because he could control which ones he crossed. He would use the stamen of the plant to do this. Mendel grew and tested over 28,000 pea plants, and his work on this extended over an eight year period. He also did some experimenting with bees and their genes. His work led to the discovery of genotypes and phenotypes, dominant and recessive traits, particulate inheritance, and the concepts of heterozygousity and homozygousity. .
             Around 1869, Mendel published his work on genetics. His paper "Experiment in Plant Hybridization" did not go over very well. Sadly, Mendel's work was not very well recognized in his day. It wasn't until the 1900's that Mendel had been recognized for his work and then called the father of genetics.


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