Tribute to the Man who discovered the Laws of Heredity. He performed experiments on Peas which brought him fame and laid the foundation a new discipline of science known as modern day Genetics… Rightly described as the ‘Father of Genetics,’ this ‘Hap-Pea’ man, Gregor John Mandel’s Birth Bicentenary is celebrated world over….
Early Days
The genius, Gregor John Mendel, born on July 20, 1822 in a German-speaking family that lived and worked on the family farm for generations which is now in the Czech Republic. During his childhood, Mendel worked as a gardener and studied beekeeping.
Mendel loved his family very much and was grateful to them. He had a special emotional relationship with his family, and especially with his mother, He addresses his parents as ‘Dearest Parents’ or ‘Beloved Parents’, and his mother and sister as ‘Dearest Mother, Dearest Sister’.
Mendel became a priest and from 1868 the Abbot of the Augustinian Abbey in Brno, which supported Science and provided the necessary facilities to Mendel. He became a Monk in part because it enabled him to obtain free education. After becoming a Monk, Mendel spent most of his life in the Augustinian Abbey of St Thomas in Brno. It was in this Monastery, he conducted his crossbreeding experiments with Pea plants, through which he discovered the role of Dominant and Recessive genes. This discovery later formed the core of Genetics, one of the most important sciences of the 20th century.
Pea Experiments
Mendel conducted very simple hybridisation experiments on over 5000 Pea plants which he had planted in the garden of his monastery at Brno. When Mendel planned his experiments with peas, he first studied the conclusions of his predecessors, who had undertaken similar experiments with plant crosses. He was aware that this would be a difficult task. He studied seven different characteristics of Pea Plants, including Height, Pod shape and Seed colour. Mendel showed that when two differently coloured Pea plants were cross-bred, their offspring always produced seeds of only one colour, but in the next generation he observed that the other colour reappeared in the ratio of one to three. Mendel coined the terms ‘Dominant’ and ‘Recessive’ for the different traits he observed in Pea plants. During ten years of experimentation on Peas, Mendel grew over 28,000 Pea plants and made conclusions on the different ratios he obtained that are now known as Mendel’s laws of heredity.
The Genius
Gregor Mendel (1822–1884) is regarded as the father of Genetics owing to his meticulous research on the common garden Pea (Pisum sativum) that allowed him to deduce fundamental laws of inheritance. His discovery of the laws of genetics were far ahead of his times. His insights were developed long before we understood the structure of DNA and the genes that constitute Mendel’s inheritance “factors.”
The genius of Mendel’s contribution to science revelled the secrets of evolution. The two greats, Mendel and Darwin never met, but the theories proposed by Mendel proved to be complementary to the theory of evolution. Mendel’s work is not merely restricted in helping reveal the evolutionary mechanisms but his multidisciplinary approach is fascinating. Mendel achieved an unprecedented interconnection between theory and practice by using methods unknown to biological science of that time. He was one of the first to apply mathematical methods to biological research. His painstaking analyses of seven carefully selected traits assessed in approximately 28,000 Pea plants over the course of a decade allowed him to discover the fundamental laws of inheritance .
Mendel published his work describing the actions of invisible ‘factors’ in determining the traits of an organism, these factors are now known as ‘genes’.
Late Recognition
When Mendel presented the results of his experiments in 1865, he received a little response. The world, which was overwhelmed by Darwin’s theory of evolution, did not understand Mendel’s work and its significance. The significance of Mendel’s work was not recognised until more than three decades later, with the rediscovery of his laws of inheritance Mendel gained posthumous recognition as the founder of science of Genetics. Mendel’s Pea plant experiments, conducted between 1856 and 1863, established many of the rules of heredity, now referred to as the laws of Mendelian Genetics. Mendel’s importance was rediscovered 16 years after his death, when his conclusions were confirmed by Erich von Tschermak, Hugo de Vries and Carl Correns while independently verifying Mendel’s experimental findings in 1900. This heralded a new era in modern age of genetics which earned him the title of “father of genetics”.
Versatile Genius
Gregor Johann Mendel A modest genius was an extraordinary versatile personality. He was a biologist, meteorologist and a mathematician too,
Mendel enjoyed beekeeping since his very childhood. He invented new ways of overwintering of bees and he also tried the cross-bedding of bees. He was an outstanding pomologist. He cultivated vines and new species of fruit trees and regularly participated in competitions.
Mendel was also fond of Meteorology. He was one of the Pioneers of Weather forecasting. Mendel made daily meteorological observations three times a day, at various sites of the Monastery, he carried out measurements for the Meteorological Institute in Vienna and kept the records of them.
Mendel was also an excellent teacher. He taught Physics at a Secondary School in Brno, where he presented the results of his observations on inheritance in 1865. Mendel also wrote poetry and in one of his poems titled ‘The Man’ his life credo is described that ‘It is man’s destiny to strive for high goals and to use all his abilities to achieve them’.
The great genius, the ‘Pea Man’ died on 6th Jan 1884, revealing the Laws of Heredity and giving birth to the Science of Genetics.
–Dr Siddhivinayak Barve
