Gregor Johann Mendel

Gregor Johann Mendel was an Austrian monk,who was the first to explain the mechanism of transmission of characters from the parents to the offsprings.He maintained that there were particles called factors,which carried the traits to the subsequent generation.This holds good even today and since he is the pioneer of modern genetics,he is called The father of genetics.

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Gregor Johann Mendel was born in 1822 to a family of poor farmers in Silisian,a village in Heizendorf which is now a part of Czechoslovakia.After finishing his high school,at the age of 18,he entered augustinian monastery at Brunn as a priest.From here he went to the University of Vienna for training in physics, mathematics and natural sciences.He himself became interested in hybridisation experiments.

Mendel returned to the monastery in 1854,and continued to work as a priest and teacher in the high school.In his spare time,he started his famous experiments on garden pea plant which assumes great historic importance.He conducted his experiments in the monastery garden for about nine years from 1856 to 1865.

The findings of Mendel and his laws were published in the journal annual proceedings of the natural history society of Brunn,in 1865.The paper was entitled experiments in plant hybridisation.Bit his work was not accepted or lauded by the scientific world at that time because

⭐The journal was obscure

⭐His concept was far ahead of his time

⭐The scientist were busy with the controversy over Darwin’s theory of origin of species and

⭐Mendel not being very sure of his findings lacked an aggressive approach.

Later in the year 1900,three scientists Carl Correns of Germany,Hugo de Vries of Holland and tshermak of Austria independently rediscovered Mendel’s findings and brought to light the ingenuity of father Mendel.To recognize his work,it was named as Mendel’s laws and Mendelism.