Gregor Mendel
Academic
1822 – 1884
Who was Gregor Mendel?
Gregor Johann Mendel was a German-speaking Silesian scientist and Augustinian friar who gained posthumous fame as the founder of the modern science of genetics. Though farmers had known for centuries that crossbreeding of animals and plants could favor certain desirable traits, 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 inheritance.
Mendel worked with seven characteristics of pea plants: plant height, pod shape and color, seed shape and color, and flower position and color. With seed color, he showed that when a yellow pea and a green pea were bred together their offspring plant was always yellow. However, in the next generation of plants, the green peas reappeared at a ratio of 1:3. To explain this phenomenon, Mendel coined the terms “recessive” and “dominant” in reference to certain traits. He published his work in 1866, demonstrating the actions of invisible “factors”—now called genes—in providing for visible traits in predictable ways.
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- Born
- Jul 20, 1822
Hynčice - Also known as
- Gregor Johann Mendel
- Mendel
- 孟德爾
- Мендель, Грегор Иоганн
- Parents
- Siblings
- Religion
- Catholicism
- Nationality
- Austria-Hungary
- Profession
- Education
- Palacký University, Olomouc
(1840 - 1843) - University of Vienna
(1851 - )
- Palacký University, Olomouc
- Lived in
- Austrian Silesia
- Brno
- Died
- Jan 6, 1884
Brno
Submitted
on July 23, 2013
Citation
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"Gregor Mendel." Biographies.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 Apr. 2024. <https://www.biographies.net/people/en/gregor_mendel>.
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