Gregor Johann Mendel (/ ˈmɛndəl /; German: [ˈmɛndl̩]; Czech: Řehoř Jan Mendel; [3] 20 July 1822 [4] – 6 January 1884) was an Austrian [5][6] biologist, meteorologist, [7] mathematician, Augustinian friar and abbot of St. Thomas' Abbey in Brno (Brünn), Margraviate of Moravia.
Through his careful breeding of garden peas, Gregor Mendel discovered the basic principles of heredity and laid the mathematical foundation of the science of genetics.
Gregor Mendel, Austrian botanist and founder of genetics, poses for a photograph circa 1860. Between 1856-1863, Mendel bred almost 30,000 pea plants in his monastery garden which demonstrated...
Mendel believed that heredity is the result of discrete units of inheritance, and every single unit (or gene) was independent in its actions in an individual’s genome. According to this Mendelian concept, the inheritance of a trait depended on the passing-on of these units.
Gregor Mendel is the father of genetics. He: Founded the science of genetics. Identified many of the rules of heredity. These rules determine how traits are passed through generations of living things.
This year we celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Gregor Johann Mendel, who discovered the missing component of Darwin’s evolutionary theory, the genetic mechanism of trait inheritance.
In 1865, Mendel presented the results of his experiments with nearly 30,000 pea plants to the local natural history society. He demonstrated that traits are transmitted faithfully from parents to offspring in specific patterns.
He proposed the existence of material hereditary elements (now called genes) that undergo segregation and independent assortment. Overshadowing the creative brilliance of Mendel's work is the fact that it was virtually ignored for 34 years.