Gregor Mendel

Gregor Johann Mendel was born in Heinzendorf, Austria on July 22, 1822. Gregor was the Abbot of Brunn in Moravia (now Brno in the Czech Republic). He was a monk. 

By crossing pea plants with contrasting ones he was able to show that some characteristics were passed on to to future generations. 

He experimented on garden pea plants, investigating simple well-defined characteristics (or traits), such as flower colour or seed shape, and he varied one trait at a time. Previous investigators had tried to study many complex traits, such as human height or intelligence. Mendel use an organism whose sexual reproduction he could easily control by carefully pollinating stigmas with pollen using a brush. Peas can also be self pollinated, allowing self crosses to be performed. This is not possible with animals. He repeated his crosses hundreds of times and applied statistical tests to his results, and studied two generations of peas at a time.

'Mendel's laws' of heredity were published in 1866.  

After careful analysis he arrived at the concept of dominant and recessive genes. After publication, his results lay unnoticed in the journal of a local society until they were rediscovered in 1900 as three botanists, working independently, came up with the same conclusions as Mendel. 

The experiments of Mendel were too original for many scientists of his day, yet the science he founded is now one of the most important fields in modern biology.

He died in Brno, Austria January 6, 1884.