Skip Nav Destination
Article navigation
Volume 125, Issue 3
March 2001
- Previous Article
- Next Article
A PORTRAIT IN HISTORY| March 01 2001
Venita Jay, MD, FRCPC
Venita Jay, MD, FRCPC
From the Division of Pathology, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Ontario.
Search for other works by this author on:
This Site
Arch Pathol Lab Med (2001) 125 (3): 320–321.
Article history
Accepted:
October 20 2000
- Split-Screen
- Views Icon Views
- Article contents
- Figures & tables
- Video
- Audio
- Supplementary Data
- Peer Review
- Tools Icon Tools
Cite Icon Cite
- Search Site
Citation
Venita Jay; Gregor Johann Mendel. Arch Pathol Lab Med 1 March 2001; 125 (3): 320–321. doi: https://doi.org/10.5858/2001-125-0320-GJM
Download citation file:
- Ris (Zotero)
- Reference Manager
- EasyBib
- Bookends
- Mendeley
- Papers
- EndNote
- RefWorks
- BibTex
On August 6, 1847, Gregor Johann Mendel was ordained as a priest in Brünn, Moravia. Luckily for medicine, Mendel's personality and psychosomatic disposition rendered him unsuitable for practical pastoral duties. It was 18 years later that the results of his famous experiments with the garden pea were presented to the Brünn Natural History Society. In the following year, the landmark work, “Experiments on Plant Hybrids,” was published. Even the enigmatic Mendel, who elucidated the fundamental principles of genetics, was perhaps unaware of the monumental nature of his work. Upon his death in 1884, no one had yet recognized him as the founder of a new and powerful science; the belated discovery of this cloistered monk would come years later.
Born Johann Mendel in July 1822, in Heizendorf, Silesia (then in Austria), Mendel hailed from a humble family of peasants devoted to farming and gardening. Johann Schreiber, a priest from a Moravian parish, recognized the immense talent in the young Mendel and encouraged the family, which was under dire financial circumstances, to send Mendel for higher education. Schreiber was an expert fruit grower with a special interest in natural history and would have a lasting influence on Mendel. It was with all of Mendel's strength and endurance and the support of his family that he was able to complete his 2-year course of philosophical studies.
When Mendel's father died, the financial hardship facing his family became more severe. Mendel tried private tutoring, but with his perpetual struggle to make ends meet, he could see no satisfactory worldly existence compatible with his intellectual ideals. He thus turned to theology as a vocational choice, and joined the Augustinian Monastery in Brno (Brünn) in 1843.
At the time, Brünn was a thriving cultural center in Moravia. The abbot of this monastery, Franz Cyrill Napp, was an enigmatic figure. An ardent linguist proficient in ancient Oriental languages, Napp had many other passions, including horticulture, viniculture, and fruit growing. Many exotic plants were grown in Napp's monastery. It was in this monastery that the young Mendel stepped in, taking the name Gregor.
There was intense interest in animal and plant breeding in Moravia, and Napp was intrigued by the principles of breeding and heredity. Napp was intimately involved with the Moravian-Silesian Agricultural Society. The astonishing results of some area sheep breeders on combining and improving valuable traits were discussed in detail at the meetings of the society. The question of plant improvement was particularly significant for fruit growers. No doubt, Mendel's interest in heredity was aroused by these discussions.
For 4 years, Mendel pursued his theological studies, and he was ordained as a priest in August 1847. But it soon became apparent that Mendel was unfit for pastoral duties, as the very sight of suffering made him ill. The intuitive Napp realized this and excused Mendel from pastoral duties and assigned him to teaching. In the abbey, Mendel's life was enriched not only by Napp, but also by several other intellectuals, scientists, and botanists.
Mendel twice failed to pass the official examination required for natural science teachers. He thus lacked the state qualifications to teach and settled into a career of teaching in a local school. Napp, who saw tremendous potential in Mendel, arranged for Mendel's university studies in Vienna, with the expenses covered by the monastery. Napp himself had originated from a poor family and supported young men from similar social circumstances.
From 1856 to 1863, Mendel conducted his famous plant breeding experiments with the garden pea (Pisum sativum). These experiments took place in a narrow garden in the abbey, which measured 35 m long and 7 m wide. Mendel essentially found the same pattern for all 7 traits he studied, and he derived the mathematical formula that defined the laws of heredity. Mendel's work remains a classic, outlining the results of experimental work with painstaking observations on 7 pairs of contrasting characters. These characters included those affecting the seed (wrinkled or round, yellow or green, and gray or white seedcoat) and those affecting the plant (distribution of flowers, shape and color of pods, and length of stem). Mendel's laws of segregation and the law of independent assortment of characters are now recognized as the fundamental principles of heredity. He noted that each trait was inherited as a separate unit; these units of heredity would later be named genes. Mendel introduced the terms dominant and recessive.
Mendel elucidated the basic patterns of inheritance by performing carefully planned experiments on the common garden pea, an extremely wise choice of experimental model. Pea plants proved to be excellent subjects for simple genetic experiments, as they had some easily recognizable, clear-cut differences in external characteristics.
When Mendel read his paper entitled “Experiments on Plant Hybrids” in 1865 before the Brünn Natural History Society, little discussion followed. This work was published in the proceedings of the society in the following year (1866), but would remain in obscurity for more than 30 years.
For years, Mendel maintained a scientific correspondence with Carl Naegeli, a leading German scientist. Naegeli steered Mendel in the direction of the hawkweed, which proved to be a complicated and unfortunate experimental model.
Two years after publication of his paper on the garden pea, Mendel was elected abbot of the monastery. His life thereafter became involved in administrative problems. In particular, Mendel was saddened by a dispute concerning the taxation of the monastery property.
The founder of genetics, Mendel died January 6, 1884, after a long bout with chronic nephritis. In his final years, the conflict with government officials on religious taxes took a toll on his health. Yet, Mendel was an enigmatic figure whose life was marked not only by remarkable successes, but also by many adversities and disappointments. A combination of factors, including dire financial situations, inadequate nutrition, and illness, forced him into a vocational choice borne out of the necessity to survive. Failure to pass the board examinations for teaching certification was a blow to him, but had Mendel been successful, he would have had little opportunity to devote long hours to his experiments with the garden pea.
Mendel was indeed before his time—the monumental significance of his work was not recognized by his peers. At the dawn of the 20th century, 3 researchers, Hugo DeVries, Karl Correns, and Erich von Seysenegy Tschermak, independently discovered the mendelian principles. Unappreciated in life, one posthumous honor after another has been bestowed on this extraordinary monk.
View largeDownload slide
Gregor Mendel. Illustration by Venita Jay, MD, FRCPC
View largeDownload slide
Gregor Mendel. Illustration by Venita Jay, MD, FRCPC
Close modal
1
The author acknowledges that the general biographical overview presented does not necessarily include all of the accomplishments or achievements associated with the person discussed. Dr Jay welcomes comments from readers concerning the “A Portrait in History” section.
2
Reprints not available from the author.
3
From the Division of Pathology, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
College of American Pathologists
2001
Sponsored Video
174 Views
0 Citations
View Metrics
Citing articles via
Google Scholar
CrossRef
- Latest
- Most Read
- Most Cited
Pathologist-Verified Billing: Correction Rates of Miscoded Frozen Section Cases
John Hedgepeth, MD, Cara Randall, MD, Tracie Massey, PA(ASCP), Christine Bookhout, MD
Evaluation of a Multilevel Laboratory Stewardship Intervention Targeted to Cardiac and Thoracic Surgical Services at an Academic Medical Center
Patrick C. Mathias, MD, PhD, Sara Khor, MASc, Kathryn Harris, MSN, ARNP, AGACNP, BC, Suzanne J. Wood, PhD, MS, Farhood Farjah, MD, MPH
Pathologists as Clinical Consultants: For the Patient and With the Patient
Donald S. Karcher, MD
Frontiers in Breast Pathology
Puay Hoon Tan, MBBS, MD, Lanjing Zhang, MD
Reporting of Surgically Removed Lymph Nodes for Breast Tumors: Recommendations From the International Collaboration on Cancer Reporting
Gábor Cserni, MD, PhD, DSc, Edi Brogi, MD, PhD, Hiram S. Cody, III, MD, Rahul Deb, MD, FEBP, FRCPath, Gelareh Farshid, MBBS, MD, MPh, FRCPA, Sandra O'Toole, MB BS (HONS), BSC MED (HONS), PHD, FRCPA, Elena Provenzano, MB BS, PhD, Cecily M. Quinn, MB (HONS), MD, FRCPI, FRCPath, Aysegul A. Sahin, MD, Fernando Schmitt, MD, PhD, Donald L. Weaver, MD, Rin Yamaguchi, MD, PhD, Fleur Webster, MSc, MPH, Puay Hoon Tan, MBBS, FRCPA
Nicotine and Tobacco Alkaloid Testing and Challenges: Lessons Learned From a College of American Pathologists Proficiency Testing Survey
Christine L. H. Snozek, PhD, Gwendolyn A. McMillin, PhD, Ann Nwosu, MS, Annabel Dizon, MT(ASCP), Matthew D. Krasowski, MD, PhD
ADAMTS13 Biomarkers in Management of Immune Thrombotic Thrombocytopenic Purpura
Jingrui Sui, MD, PhD, Liang Zheng, PhD, X. Long Zheng, MD, PhD
Building the Model: Challenges and Considerations of Developing and Implementing Machine Learning Tools for Clinical Laboratory Medicine Practice
He S. Yang, PhD, Daniel D. Rhoads, MD, Jorge Sepulveda, MD, PhD, Chengxi Zang, PhD, Amy Chadburn, MD, Fei Wang, PhD
Pathologists' Assistants in Nontraditional Roles: Uncovering the Hidden Value in Your Laboratory
Heather Gaburo, MHS, PA(ASCP) CM
Application of a Fully Automated Dried Blood Spot Method for Therapeutic Drug Monitoring of Immunosuppressants: Another Step Toward Implementation of Dried Blood Spot Analysis
Sigrid Deprez, PharmD, Christophe Stove, PhD
Get Email Alerts
FAQs
Who is Gregor Mendel short answer? ›
Gregor Mendel was an Austrian scientist, teacher, and Augustinian prelate who lived in the 1800s. He experimented on garden pea hybrids while living at a monastery and is known as the father of modern genetics.
What are Mendel's 3 conclusions? ›Mendel's studies yielded three "laws" of inheritance: the law of dominance, the law of segregation, and the law of independent assortment. Each of these can be understood through examining the process of meiosis.
What are the 3 principles of Gregor Mendel? ›The three laws of inheritance proposed by Mendel include: Law of Dominance. Law of Segregation. Law of Independent Assortment.
What were Mendel's two main conclusions? ›Upon compiling his results for many thousands of plants, Mendel concluded that the characteristics could be divided into expressed and latent traits. He called these dominant and recessive traits, respectively. Dominant traits are those that are inherited unchanged in a hybridization.
Why Mendel is called father of genetics? ›Gregor Mendel, through his work on pea plants, discovered the fundamental laws of inheritance. He deduced that genes come in pairs and are inherited as distinct units, one from each parent. Mendel tracked the segregation of parental genes and their appearance in the offspring as dominant or recessive traits.
Why is Mendelian genetics important? ›The study of Mendelian inheritance is important for students of childhood development because it provides the essential building blocks for understanding more complex patterns of inheritance.
What are the 3 laws of inheritance? ›Law of inheritance is made up of three laws: Law of segregation, law of independent assortment and law of dominance.
What are the two main principles of Mendelian genetics? ›Mendel's laws (principles) of segregation and independent assortment are both explained by the physical behavior of chromosomes during meiosis.
What are the 4 principles of inheritance? ›The Mendel's four postulates and laws of inheritance are: (1) Principles of Paired Factors (2) Principle of Dominance(3) Law of Segregation or Law of Purity of Gametes (Mendel's First Law of Inheritance) and (4) Law of Independent Assortment (Mendel's Second Law of Inheritance).
What is the theme behind Mendelian inheritance? ›The Mendelian Concept of a Gene
Mendel instead believed that heredity is the result of discrete units of inheritance, and every single unit (or gene) was independent in its actions in an individual's genome. According to this Mendelian concept, inheritance of a trait depends on the passing-on of these units.
What is Mendel's first law of inheritance? ›
Mendel's First Law - the law of segregation; during gamete formation each member of the allelic pair separates from the other member to form the genetic constitution of the gamete.
What are the 7 characteristics of pea plants? ›- Pea shape (round or wrinkled)
- Pea color (green or yellow)
- Pod shape (constricted or inflated)
- Pod color (green or yellow)
- Flower color (purple or white)
- Plant size (tall or dwarf)
- Position of flowers (axial or terminal)
Question 5 What was the most significant conclusion that Gregor Mendel drew from his experiments with pea plants? Traits are inherited in discrete units.
What was the purpose of Mendel's experiment? ›In 1856, Mendel began a series of experiments at the monastery to find out how traits are passed from generation to generation. At the time, it was thought that parents' traits were blended together in their progeny.
Why was Mendel's approach to the study of heredity so successful? ›Mendel's success can be attributed in part to his classic experimental approach. He chose his experimental organism well and performed many controlled experiments to collect data.
Who discovered DNA? ›Many people believe that American biologist James Watson and English physicist Francis Crick discovered DNA in the 1950s. In reality, this is not the case. Rather, DNA was first identified in the late 1860s by Swiss chemist Friedrich Miescher.
Who invented genetics? ›In the 19th century, it was commonly believed that an organism's traits were passed on to offspring in a blend of characteristics 'donated' by each parent.
Who first used the word genetics? ›The word genetics was introduced in 1905 by English biologist William Bateson, who was one of the discoverers of Mendel's work and who became a champion of Mendel's principles of inheritance.
How important is the study of Mendelian genetics in our daily life? ›Genetics helps to explain: What makes you unique, or one of a kind. Why family members look alike. Why some diseases like diabetes or cancer run in families.
Do humans have Mendelian traits? ›Mendelian Traits are those traits which follow Mendel's rules of only 2 possible versions of a gene (1 dominant, 1 recessive). There are only a few examples of this in humans.
How can Mendelian rules of inheritance be applied in our daily lives? ›
Mendel worked on pea plants, but his principles apply to traits in plants and animals – they can explain how we inherit our eye colour, hair colour and even tongue-rolling ability.
What is inheritance theory? ›Dual Inheritance Theory is a theoretical framework positing that human biology and behavior are influenced by two lines of inherited information: a genetic line, which all species inherit from their biological parents, and a cultural line, unique to our species, which we inherit from other members of our society.
What is inheritance principle? ›Inheritance is the basis of heredity and by this process, traits are passed on from the parents to the offsprings. Continuity of the gene pool is maintained by the process of inheritance. Genes are the basic unit of inheritance and located on chromosomes. Variation exists among individuals of one species.
What is the importance of the three principles of inheritance? ›By experimenting with pea plant breeding, Mendel developed three principles of inheritance that described the transmission of genetic traits, before anyone knew genes existed. Mendel's insight greatly expanded the understanding of genetic inheritance, and led to the development of new experimental methods.
How do Mendel's experiments show that gene may be dominant or recessive? ›The trait expressing itself in the hybrid is the dominant one. This experiment proves Mendel's first law of inheritance. It states that when a pair of contrasting factors are brought in a hybrid, one factor inhibits the appearance of the other, one which inhibits is the dominant one and which is inhibited is recessive.
What were two factors responsible for Mendel's success? ›He called genes a factor. He is called the father of inheritance. Complete answer: Mendal was successful to explain the laws of heredity because he chose pea plants that were pure. The main reason for the success of Mendel was that he took one character at one time in his experiments of hybridization.
Which has the most control of traits and inheritance? ›Genes have the most control of traits and inheritance.
They are the basic unit of inheritance. Some traits are controlled by a single gene while other traits are controlled by multiple genes. Each gene codes for a single polypeptide and these polypeptides are the proteins that control traits.
A polygenic trait is a characteristic, such as height or skin color, that is influenced by two or more genes. Because multiple genes are involved, polygenic traits do not follow the patterns of Mendelian inheritance.
How do Mendel experiment proved that traits are inherited independently? ›During dihybrid cross by Mendel, it was observed that when two pairs of traits were considered; each trait expressed independently of the other. Thus, Mendel was able to propose the Law of Independent Assortment which says about the independent inheritance of traits.
What is Mendel's second Law of inheritance? ›Mendel's second law states that the outcome of one gene is not related to the outcome of another gene. It is also known as the law of independent assortment. It was discovered when Mendel compared the two alleles (the possible forms of a gene) for color and shape of peas.
Does Mendelian inheritance apply to humans? ›
Mendelian inheritance refers to the inheritance of traits controlled by a single gene with two alleles, one of which may be dominant to the other. Not many human traits are controlled by a single gene with two alleles, but they are a good starting point for understanding human heredity.
What was Mendel's most significant conclusion from his research with pea plants? ›) What was the most significant conclusion that Gregor Mendel drew from his experiments with pea plants? Traits are inherited in discrete units, and are not the results of "blending."
Do all genes follow Mendelian inheritance patterns? ›Several basic modes of inheritance exist for single-gene disorders: autosomal dominant, autosomal recessive, X-linked dominant, and X-linked recessive. However, not all genetic conditions will follow these patterns, and other rare forms of inheritance such as mitochondrial inheritance exist.
Which is the most important law of Mendel? ›Out of these three laws, the law of segregation is the most important law because it has no exceptions and is universally accepted.
Why is Mendel's first law important? ›Mendel's First Law is especially remarkable because he made his observations and conclusions (1865) without knowing about the relationships between genes, chromosomes, and DNA.
What is the difference between a gene and an allele? ›So, what it is the difference between a gene and an allele? The short answer is that an allele is a variant form of a gene. Explained in greater detail, each gene resides at a specific locus (location on a chromosome) in two copies, one copy of the gene inherited from each parent.
What is pea plant called? ›pea, (Pisum sativum), also called garden pea, herbaceous annual plant in the family Fabaceae, grown virtually worldwide for its edible seeds.
Which Law is not a Mendelian principle? ›While Mendel's work laid a foundation, it isCorrens who is credited with the actual discovery of incomplete dominance. In his work, Correns observed a blend of colors in flower petals. So, the correct option is 'Law of incomplete dominance'.
Which characters of pea plant is dominant? ›Green pod color is dominant and yellow is recessive. The shape of the pod has two traits – inflated and constricted.
What is the conclusion of Mendel experiment? ›Upon compiling his results for many thousands of plants, Mendel concluded that the characteristics could be divided into expressed and latent traits. He called these dominant and recessive traits, respectively. Dominant traits are those that are inherited unchanged in a hybridization.
What are the three conclusions Mendel came to after his research? ›
Mendel's studies yielded three "laws" of inheritance: the law of dominance, the law of segregation, and the law of independent assortment. Each of these can be understood through examining the process of meiosis.
What is the definition of Gregor Mendel's principle of segregation? ›The Principle of Segregation describes how pairs of gene variants are separated into reproductive cells. The segregation of gene variants, called alleles, and their corresponding traits was first observed by Gregor Mendel in 1865. Mendel was studying genetics by performing mating crosses in pea plants.
Why did Mendel choose pea plant for his experiments and why? ›To study genetics, Mendel chose to work with pea plants because they have easily identifiable traits (Figure below). For example, pea plants are either tall or short, which is an easy trait to observe. Furthermore, pea plants grow quickly, so he could complete many experiments in a short period of time.
Why was it important for Mendel to study such a large sample of P? ›They are able to sell fertilization. This makes us experiment easy to study and also he could make the experiment quickly. So the right answer for this question is selecting a large sample of pet plant to determine the probability of inheritance will be having or will be getting more accurate results.
Why was Mendel's work not recognized until after his death? ›Mendel's brilliance is unrecognized.
While his work was appreciated for its thoroughness, no one seemed to grasp its importance. The work was simply too ahead of its time, too contrary to popular beliefs about heredity. "My time will come," Mendel once said, but it was over 30 years before his work was appreciated.
Mendel's most important contribution to the modern understanding of biology is that hereditary information comes in discrete units. He deduced from his experiments that each character is controlled by discrete units and they are paired, each one inherited from a parent. He called these units as factors.
How did Mendel prove the Law of segregation? ›Mendel proposed the Law of Segregation after observing that pea plants with two different traits produced offspring that all expressed the dominant trait, but the following generation expressed the dominant and recessive traits in a 3:1 ratio.
Who is called father of genetics? ›Gregor Mendel: the 'father of genetics'
Who is known as father of genetics? ›Gregor Mendel. Gregor Mendel's work in pea led to our understanding of the foundational principles of inheritance. The Father of Genetics.
Who is Gregor Johann Mendel and what is his contribution to science? ›The Austrian monk, Gregor Johann Mendel, discovered the basic laws of heredity and laid the foundation for the science of modern genetics. The importance of his work was not recognised until 1900, 12 years after Mendel's death and 34 years after its publication.
What did Gregor Mendel do? ›
By experimenting with pea plant breeding, Mendel developed three principles of inheritance that described the transmission of genetic traits, before anyone knew genes existed. Mendel's insight greatly expanded the understanding of genetic inheritance, and led to the development of new experimental methods.
Who discovered DNA? ›Many people believe that American biologist James Watson and English physicist Francis Crick discovered DNA in the 1950s. In reality, this is not the case. Rather, DNA was first identified in the late 1860s by Swiss chemist Friedrich Miescher.
Who discovered genetic code? ›In 1961, Francis Crick, Sydney Brenner, Leslie Barnett, and Richard Watts-Tobin first demonstrated the three bases of DNA code for one amino acid [7]. That was the moment that scientists cracked the code of life.
When was genetics first discovered? ›1866 - Gregor Mendel discovers the basic principles of genetics. In 1866, an unknown Augustinian monk was the first person to shed light on the way in which characteristics are passed down the generations. Today, he is widely considered to be the father of genetics.
How did genetics start? ›The scientific history of genetics began with the works of Gregor Mendel in the mid-19th century. Prior to Mendel, genetics was primarily theoretical whilst, after Mendel, the science of genetics was broadened to include experimental genetics.
Who is the Father of plant breeding? ›In the mid-1800s Gregor Mendel outlined the principles of heredity using pea plants and thus provided the necessary framework for scientific plant breeding.
Who discovered the mutation? ›In 1901 the geneticist Hugo de Vries gave the name "mutation" to seemingly new forms that suddenly arose in his experiments on the evening primrose Oenothera lamarckiana.
What was the most significant conclusion that Gregor? ›Question 5 What was the most significant conclusion that Gregor Mendel drew from his experiments with pea plants? Traits are inherited in discrete units.
Why was Mendel's understanding of mathematics and science important for his research? ›Solution : His study of science helped him observe and understand natural events through experimentataion. His understanding of mathematics helped explain his observations and to ensure that he repeated the experiments enough times to make sure his results were representative and not due to chance.
Why was Gregor Mendel experiment successful? ›The main reason for the success of Mendel was that he took one character at one time in his experiments of hybridization. So it was easy. Other scientists also performed cross-hybridization for many characters, this made the experiments complex and they could not accurately explain the results.
What was Mendel trying to determine? ›
Referred to as the father of genetics, Mendel was trying to determine if, and how, traits were passed down from one generation to the next. He initially focused on more simple traits, such like pea plant height, to make the connection between inheritance and the expression of traits.
What is First Law of Mendel? ›The first law of inheritance is the law of dominance. The law states that hybrid offspring will only inherit the dominant characteristics in the phenotype. The alleles that suppress a trait are recessive traits, whereas the alleles that define a trait are known as dominant traits.
Why did Mendel choose pea plants? ›Gregor Mendel chose the pea plants for his experiments because the garden pea is an ideal subject in the study of genetics for the following reasons: Presence of observable traits with contrasting forms. It produces many offspring in one cross. Short life cycle.