JOHANN
GREGAR MENDEL
Mendel’s
laws relating genetics are esteemed to be of a great value in the present day
medical world in controlling certain diseases caused due to genetic disorders.
His laws were not known to the world as of his own, as he did not disclose his
name in many of his theoretical propagations. It is only in 1900 after his
death in 1884 scientists came to known that these laws were made by Mendel. So
he became world famous posthumously.
Mendel was born on 22nd
July 1822 into a family of peasants and gardeners in Moravia , Czechoslovakia in Austria
He studied in his own place
Heinzdorf for elementary education. For want of money he couldnot pursue higher
studies.
At the age of 21, he settled to the
monastic life and became a priest in 1847. The church authorities sent him for
higher studies to Vienna
His interest in studying the plants
in the botanical gardens of the church increased. Practically those botanical
gardens became his research laboratories.
The most outstanding contribution
Mendel made to the world as a Botanist is his theories regarding the
characteristics of heredity that the plants exhibited.
Mendel was curious as to why some
pea plants were tall while some were short. He began to experiment on this
aspect. He understood that when a plant produced from only one type of parent,
it would be possible to get pure plants type only. A tall plant that
reproducers tall plants for generation after generation happened to be pure in
the trait of being tall. Similarly a dwarf plant which is dwarf is pure in the traitug
being dwarf.
He kept two sets of plants. One set
for pollinating among themselves. The other set to be pollinated from other
plants of different traits. He observed that there was the birth of plants with
different traits in the second set that is a mixture of tall plants and dwarf
plants.
The ‘cross-pollination gave birth to
product-plants all of which were tall only. This puzzled Mendel. When he
further cross-pollinated the offspring’s of pure tall and dwarf plants, he
found that 3 out of every four plants were tall while the 4th one
was dwarf! Thus he concluded that the trait did not show up until the next
generation. According to this theory a baby might look like its grand father
than own father.
Based on his experimental
observations he formulated a theory called “The Law of Dominance.”
It is the above theory that laid the
foundation for the thought of genetic characteristics which later came to be
known as “The Law of Heredity.”
This genetic constitution theory of
Mendel has been a solution to the many medical enigmas in the present world.
JOHANN GREGAR MENDEL
Reviewed by vijaykumar
on
23:01
Rating:
Reviewed by vijaykumar
on
23:01
Rating:
No comments: