Gregor Mendel The Father of Modern Genetics

Gregor Mendel ( ) was born in a small village in Heinzendorf (now Czechoslovakia).

His parents, Anton and Rosina Mendel named him Johann. Johann was a good student and very academic, but unfortunately, when he got older he could not complete his education because his family was very poor and could not afford high school.

21 years old - Mendel decided to join a Catholic monastery in the town of Brunn so that he could continue his studies on his own. There, he was required to choose a new name, so he became Gregor Johann Mendel and became a priest in 1847 when he was 25 years old. Mendel pastored but his real desire was to be a teacher.

At age 27 – Mendel was assigned to a secondary school. To be a teacher, however, he had to pass the teacher exam. He took the exam but failed it.

Back at the monastery, the priest in charge sent Mendel to the University of Vienna (Austria) so that he could study physics, chemistry, zoology, and mathematics. It was here that he developed research skills that he would use later in his life.

Now, at age 32, he was feeling better about taking that teacher exam. So, he tried taking the teacher exam again and this time he Failed again! He actually became quite ill about it. Mendel suffered from test anxiety. After this Mendel thought “hmmmm, maybe I don't want to be a teacher after all.....”

At age 34 he returned to the monastery and started using his research skills working with pea plants in the garden. He did that for the next 28 years until he died (age 62).

BASILICA OF THE ASSUMPTION OF OUR LADY This is the place where Mendel did his work.

And here's the garden where he did his genetics work

Gregor Mendel's notebook, showing a page of calculations from his field notes on the heredity of characteristics in peas, circa 1864.

All during his adult life his scientific peers did not recognize his work as valid. No Sir, I don't think I believe it.

It wasn't until the early 1900's that scientists started to realize that he was actually correct with the ideas that he had about inherited traits. It was then he was given the title – “Father of Modern Genetics”

Tomorrow we will take a look at the work that Mendel did and see just what his experiments were with those pea plants.

The Mendel Medal was founded by Villanova University in The Mendel Medal is awarded to outstanding scientists who have done much by their painstaking work to advance the cause of science, and, by their lives and their standing before the world as scientists, have demonstrated that between true science and true religion there is no intrinsic conflict.

Here's where Gregor Mendel is now. In a cemetery in the Czech Republic.