Gregor Mendel

Gregor Mendel, born as Johann Mendel, was an Austrian scientist and monk hailed as the
Father of modern genetics for his pioneering research in the field of heredity.

Childhood & Early Life

Gregor Mendel was born on the 22 of July, 1822, at Heinzendorf bei Odrau in the
Austrian Empire (now Hyncice,Czech Republic), as the middle child and only son of
Anton and Rosine Mendel. He had two sisters (Veronica & Theresia Mendel) and the
family lived and worked on the farm they had owned for generations.
As a child he worked in the garden and studied beekeeping which cultivated in him a
deep love for biological sciences.
He received his early schooling in his own small village but had to be sent to a nearby
town for his secondary education. The decision to send away their only son was not an
easy one for his parents, but they did it for sake of his future.
Later on he went to the University of Olomouc where he studied philosophy and
physics from 1840 to 1843.

Career & Works

In 1843, he began his training as a priest and joined the Augustinian Abbey of St
Thomas in Brno as a monk. He took the name Gregor on entering the religious field.
The monastery sent him to the University of Vienna to study under Abbot C.F.Napp.
There he studied physics and mathematics under Christian Doppler and botany from
Franz Unger.
He rejoined the monastery as a teacher in 1853 where, inspired by the work of Franz
Unger and motivated by his colleagues, he began his experiments in its sprawling
gardens.
He began to conduct his practical study on plants in 1856.He studied edible pea plants
and recognized seven distinct characteristics that remained consistent over generations
in purebred varieties. These characteristics included: height of the plant, shape of the
pod, shape of the seed, size and color of the seeds, etc.
He cross-pollinated the plants with contrasting characteristics in order to study the
effects on the offspring. He also took due precaution to prevent accidental pollination
by insects. He cultivated thousands of pea plants over the course of his experiments.
He collected the seeds of the offspring and analyzed them for variations in colour,
shape, and size. He also compared the plants for differences in height.
Over a period of eight years he painstakingly examined the plants, pods and seeds and
made observations that would form the basis for a deeper study of genetics.
 He presented the results of his experiments at the Natural History Society of Brno in
1865. His findings were published in a paper Experiments on Plant Hybridization in
1866.
In 1868, he was made abbot of the monastery where he had been teaching for the past
many years. The increased responsibilities prevented him from conducting any further
scientific experiments.
Gregor Mendels works failed to gain much importance during his lifetime, but formed
the foundation for what is today known as Mendels Laws of Inheritance.

Major Works

Mendel through his extensive experimentation and analysis founded the three laws or
principles of inheritance: The law of segregation, the law of dominance, and the law of
independent assortment.
He developed the concepts of dominant and recessive genes that explain how genetic
traits are passed along from generation to generation.
His 1865 paper Experiments on Plant Hybridization which was largely ignored
during his lifetime is today regarded as the base of genetic experimentation.

Personal Life & Legacy

As a young man he had very close and loving relations with his parents. Being a monk,
he never married and led a life of celibacy.
He died, on the 6th of June, 1884, at the age 61, in Brno (Brunn) in Austria-Hungary
(now Czech Republic), after suffering from kidney problems.
His work on heredity which did not find much acceptance during his lifetime took on
much greater significance after his death and he was posthumously hailed as the father
of modern genetics.

Trivia

He founded the 'Austrian Meteorological Society' in 1865.

He had also tried conducting experiments on honeybees but was not very successful.
All the papers in his possession were burned after his death.