Gregor Mendel, Founder of the Principles of Modern Genetics who Had been Ignored - Not all discoveries were celebrated, some were even ignored and forgotten. That's what happened to Gregor Johann Mendel during his lifetime.
The scientist who perched at number 59 of the 100 most influential people in history according to Michael H. Hart is the discoverer of the basic principles of genetics. However, during his lifetime Mendel was only known as an ordinary monk who failed even the teacher certification exam.
Johann Mendel was born in Heizendorf, a small town in northern Moravia, now the Czech Republic in 1822. He grew up in a simple rural peasant family but had a high appreciation for education. It is no wonder that little Johann was already familiar with agricultural practices.
His academic ability has been known since he was a child. So a pastor in his village advised his parents not to hesitate to send Johann to the city. In 1840 at the age of 18, Johann finally entered the University of Olmutz, where he studied philosophy, mathematics, and physics.
After graduating from Olmutz University three years later, he chose the way of life as a monk. He then moved to the City of Brunn, now Brno in the Czech Republic and joined the Augustinian Order. In 1847 he was appointed priest and received the first name, Gregor.
Not only carrying out parochial duties, but Gregor was also asked to teach. He was a good teacher, but somehow he failed the certification exam in 1850.
"He failed and got the lowest score in biology and geology! Even so, the abbot in charge of Mendel's office sent Mendel to the University of Vienna where he studied mathematics and science from 1851 to 1853, "wrote Michael Hart in 100 Most Influential People in the World (2012: 301).
As at the University of Olmütz in the past, in Vienna Gregor Mendel returned to his old penchant for studying physics and mathematics. The Encyclopedia Britannica says he was mentored by Austrian physicists Christian Doppler and Andreas von Ettinghausen. Besides, he also studied plant anatomy and physiology under the botanist Franz Unger.
In the Right Place
After graduating from the University of Vienna, Gregor Mendel returned to the monastery and taught at the Brunn Realschule.
Smithsonian science magazine writer Beth Py-Lieberman said that the success of Gregor Mendel's experiment was not only supported by his qualities but also because he was "in the right place". He was an uncertified teacher, but Abbot Cyrill Napp was well aware of his talent for science and experimentation.
Not only supportive, but Cyrill Napp is also visionary. Adhering to the Augustinian dictum "Per Scientiam Ad Sapientiam" (from knowledge to wisdom), Cyrill Napp manages his monastery like a scientific research institute.
Thus, when Gregor Mendel submitted a proposal for a plant hybridization experiment in 1954, Cyrill Napp did not hesitate to give his blessing. He even helped build a special greenhouse in the monastery garden to run Gregor Mendel's experiments.
So why was Gregor Mendel interested in conducting plant hybridization experiments?
"Mendel never explicitly described his motivation to experiment. Some of his biographers speculate that he is investigating the popular theory that hybridization [interbreeding between two different species] could give rise to new species, "wrote Beth Py-Lieberman.
The goal Gregor Mendel wanted to achieve was to trace the hereditary character transmission across generations of species. Mendel wanted to find a more scientific answer about heredity. This is because until that time the existing conception of the process of heredity was still vague and mixed with superstition.
In the 19th century, there were still people who believed Aristotle's old dictum from the 4th century BC, that women supplied what he called "matter" and men gave him "motion".
Likewise with the feudal assumption of "blue blood", that parents pass on to each child all its characteristics. Those characteristics are also an accumulation of the characters of the ancestors from the older generations. This conception was of course held by the feudal lords whose status rests on genealogy.
There is even a class of people who believe in the concept of telegony, who say that hereditary characteristics are influenced not only by the biological father but also by men who have previously had sex with the mother.
But, of course, Mendel was not the first to carry out scientific experiments related to heredity. It's just that until then no scientist has been able to come up with a satisfactory conclusion. So that Gregor Mendel tried two different approaches that had never been carried out by scientists before him.
"First, instead of trying to research all the complex plant features, Mendel focused on characteristics that are easily visible and distinguishable, such as round and wrinkled seeds, yellow seeds and green seeds, purple flowers and white flowers, and so on. Second, it counted the exact number of plants containing each trait. From the quantitative data, he can deduce the patterns that prevail in the heredity process, "wrote the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Experiments and Results
After his experimental proposal was approved, Mendel spent two years researching the Pisum sativum pea. The reason is simple: the plant has many varieties and is easy to cultivate. To track hereditary traits, he selected seven contrasting traits that the plants possess such as plant height (short or tall) and seed color (green or yellow).
The next stage is to cross two varieties with contrasting features, for example, a tall variety is crossed with a short variety. Mendel then made careful observations of three generations of this plant. In total, he researched eight growing seasons, from 1856 to 1863, gathered data on some 10,000 plants, and carefully counted some 40,000 flowers and 300,000 peas.
"During those eight years, Mendel grew thousands of pea plants and used a painstaking brush to transfer pollen from plant to plant to make crosses, while continuing to carry out his duties as a monk and teacher," wrote the Nature page.
From this large-scale experiment, Mendel was able to conclude that living things have "factors" that can pass on the characteristics of the mother to their offspring. At that time Mendel did not give him a special name or designation, but now the scientific world calls him a "gene".
When two parents are mated, the offspring of the first generation will resemble one parent, not a mixture of the two. Hereditary traits are determined by a pair of "factors", now known as alleles, or gene pairs. One of them is dominant, while the other is recessive.
The traits that appear in the first generation offspring come from the parent with the dominant factor. Although not visible, this recessive factor does not disappear. The characteristics of the recessive factor will reappear in the next generation.
Mendel realized that each reproductive cell or gamete (referring to a sperm or egg in humans) contains only one gene from each pair. Mendel also mentioned that the possibility of a gene from each pair appearing on each gamete and being passed on to a derivative is purely coincidence, ”wrote Michael Hart (p. 303).
In 1865 Mendel compiled the results of his research into a paper to be presented at the Brunn Natural History Society. A year later Mendel published his findings in the institute's scientific journal. Although not a prestigious journal, it is distributed to bona fide libraries in Europe.
Mendel also sent his paper to Carl Naegeli, who was known as the leading heredity scientist at that time. However, it seems that Carl Nageli failed to understand the significance of Mendel's findings. Other scientists praised his dedication, but their response was flat.
When Mendel died on January 6, 1884, today 135 years ago, there was no meaningful appreciation for this amateur scientist's endeavor. The papers were completely forgotten.
Mendel's work resurfaced into European scientific debate at the end of the century. In 1900 three scientists, Hugo de Vries from the Netherlands, Carl Correns from Germany, and Erich von Tschermak from Austria, who were conducting botanical research stumbled across Mendel's paper while browsing the literature.
Surprisingly, the three of them are not related and work independently. But all three scientists came to the same conclusion: their research reinforced Mendel's previously overlooked conclusions.
"What a coincidence! Later that same year, William Bateson, an English scientist, read Mendel's original article and immediately showed it to other scientists. Towards the end of the year Mendel received the abundant recognition he should have received while still alive,"wrote Michael Hart (p. 302).
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