Gregor Mendel

Born: 22-July-1822

Birthplace: Hynice, Czech Republic

Died: 6-January-1884

Place of Death: Brno, Czech Republic

Cause of death: unspecified

Remains: Buried, Central Cemetery, Brno, Czech Republic

Sex: Male

Religion: Roman Catholic

Race or Ethnicity: White

Occupation: research scientist, botanist, Religion

Nationality: Czech Republic

Summary: discover the laws of inheritance

The teacher, a priest and scientist Johann Mendel was born in 1822 in Austria then (now Czech Republic). His parents were farmers, and the boy working the farm, he became fascinated by fruit trees and gardening. It was a brilliant student in grade school, and his family struggled to pay for educational services at school and then Olmütz Philosophical Institute. When he could not afford to attend college, has instead joined the Augustinian monastery, becoming a priest, and the adoption of a new Christian name Gregor. He twice failed the examinations necessary to become a biology teacher in high school, but taught part-time. It 'has also been configured to work in a hospital chaplain, but found it frustrating and difficult, and soon returned to the monastery.

Mendel in the monastery tended the garden, and since 1856 he has conducted numerous experiments with pea pod plants, followed by some 28,000 individual plants over several years, focusing on seven basic characteristics of plants. In his experiments, Mendel crossed peas of different varieties - large, small shapes and colors of various seeds, etc - and kept a detailed record of how these features is or disappeared in later generations. It has carried out similar experiments with other plants and mice, and after being educated in mathematics, Mendel observed ratios recurrent analysis of how traits are inherited, the reasons could be explained by domination and segregation of genes.

In one experiment, for example, Mendel crossed a plant that produces a seed round with a plant that produces a curve Y-shaped seeds, and plants in each of the resulting seeds were round. In the next generation, but only those round hybrid seeds were planted 5474 plants with round seeds matured, while a 1850 matured seeds curved - a ratio of almost exactly 3:01. From this Mendel concluded that the seed round is a dominant trait, inherited from both parents, while the seed is a curved recessive traits are visible when the dominant feature is absent in both parents.

Mathematics Mendel revealed the fundamental laws of heredity - that many maternal and paternal characteristics are not "merge" in the offspring, but rather is passed intact to some of these properties are dominant, while other properties are recessive and that the inheritance of characteristics such obey simple statistical laws. His Versuch über Pflanzen-hybrid mini-monograph (treated on hybrid plants), was published in 1865 and is now recognized that some of the most important documents ever written science.

At that time, however, it was not reading and its implications were understood by Mendel. Before his death in 1884, he wrote: "I am convinced it will not be long before the world acknowledges the results of my work," and yes, in the 1900 three European botanists, working independently, rediscovered what Mendel explained some 35 years earlier. His research has come to be regarded as the first rigorous scientific explanation of heredity, and the foundations of modern genetics.