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Gregor Mendel

Known as the “Father of Modern Genetics”, Gregor Mendel was born on 22 July 1822 in a small farming town in the former Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic). In 1843 he entered the St. Thomas Monastery in Brunn, Czechoslovakia where he served as a monk. He was later sent by his superiors to the University of Vienna to study, and was encouraged by both his fellow monks and professors to focus on researching and experimenting with variation in plants, which he did upon returning to the monastery.

The subject of the majority of his work was the pea plant, which he used for more than 28,000 experiments in the span of seven years. His research and observations based on the successive generations of the plants are the foundations for the two laws of heredity that he developed. The ideas were not significantly received in his lifetime, but were rediscovered and seminal in the 20th century. Known jointly as “Mendel’s Laws of Inheritance”, they are the Law of Segregation and the Law of Independent Assortment. Although the laws were originally related to plants, it has since been understood that they are equally valid for animals and humans, since genetics is basically the same across the board.

Web Resources On Gregor Mendel

Wikipedia: Gregor Mendel
Gregor Mendel and Mendelian Genetics

Book Resources On Gregor Mendel

The Monk in the Garden by Robin Marantz Henig
Gregor Mendel: The First Geneticist by Vitezslav Orel

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