Gregor Mendel: biography of the father of modern genetics

This monk and naturalist became famous for proposing Mendel's laws by studying peas.

Gregor Mendel (1843-1822) was a botanist with a background in philosophy, physics and mathematics, who is credited with discovering the mathematical basis of genetic sciences, now called "Mendelism".

Below is a biography of Gregor Mendelism. we will see the biography of Gregor Mendel as well as his main contributions to modern genetics.

Biography of Gregor Mendel, the father of genetics

Gregor Johann Mendel was born on July 20, 1822, in the rural community Heinzendorf bei Odrau, in the former Austrian Empire, now the Czech Republic. He was the son of peasants with few economic resources, so Mendel spent his childhood working as a stockbreeder, which later helped him to complete higher education.

He studied at the philosophical institute in Olomouc, where he showed great skills in physics and mathematics. showed great skills in physics and mathematics.. Despite his family's wishes to continue on the family farm, Gregor Mendel began his theological training as early as 1843. This was influenced because his academic abilities were soon recognized by the local priest. In 1847 he was ordained as a priest and in 1851 he was sent to the University of Vienna to continue his studies.

There he trained under the guidance of the Austrian physicist Christian Doppler and the physicist-mathematician Andreas von Ettingshausen. He later studied plant anatomy and physiology, and specialized in the use of microscopes. under the tutelage of the botanist Franz Unger, who was an expert in cell theory and supported the development of a pre-Darwinian theory of evolution, which had an important influence on Mendel's thesis.

Despite having lived at the same time as Darwin and having read some of his texts, there is no evidence of direct exchange between Mendel and Darwin and his teachers.

Mendel was very early on motivated by the investigation of nature, which led him to the study ofThis led him to the study of different species of plants, but also to the area of meteorology and different theories of evolution. Among other things he discovered that different varieties of peas have particular intrinsic properties which, when mixed, eventually produce new plant species as independent units.

His studies laid the foundation for the discovery of the hereditary activity of genes, chromosomes and cell division, which were later known as Mendel's laws.which were later known as Mendel's laws. Gregor Mendel died on January 6, 1884 in Austria-Hungary, from kidney disease. He was not aware of having discovered a fundamental part of the development of classical genetics, as his knowledge was "rediscovered" years later by Dutch scientists.

Mendel's laws of inheritance

Mendel's laws of inheritance, also known as Mendelian inheritance, derive from his research, carried out between 1856 and 1863. This botanist had cultivated about 28,000 pea plants, which led him to formulate two laws of inheritance.This led him to formulate two generalizations about how genetic information is transmitted based on the expression of the genotype.

His text "Experiments on plant hybridization" was rediscovered by Hugo de Vries, Carl Correns and Erich von Tschermak, who had experimented and reached the same conclusions as Mendel. In 1900, another scientist, Hugo Vires, pushed for the recognition of Mendel's laws, while coining the words "genetics", "gene" and "allele". In summary, we will see below what each of these laws consists of.

1. Mendel's first law

It is also known as the law of segregation of independent characters, the law of equal segregation or the law of disjunction of alleles. Describes the random migration of chromosomes during the meiosis phase during the phase of meiosis called anaphase I..

What this law proposed was that during the formation of the gametes (the reproductive cells of living beings), each of the forms having the same gene separates from its pair to form the final gamete.to form the final gamete. Thus, each gamete has one allele for each gene and downstream variation is ensured.

2. Mendel's second law

This law is also called the law of independent transmission of characters. Mendel discovered the random alignment of chromosome pairs during the during the metaphase I phase of meiosis.

The second law states that different traits of genes that are on different chromosomes are inherited independently of each other, whereby the inheritance pattern of one does not affect that of the others.

The conclusion is that genetic dominance is the result of the expression of the set of genes and hereditary factors that exist in the organism (the genotype), and not so much of their transmission. There is controversy as to whether the latter constitutes a third law, which precedes the others, and is known as the "Law of uniformity of hybrids of the first filial generation".