Deoxyribonucleic acid, also known as DNA, is what makes up every living thing, big or small. It can be thought of as a set of instructions, which tells cells what to do. DNA determines whether a person is female or male, their skin and eye color, as well as the color of their hair.
The first person to begin discovering the complexities of DNA was Gregor Mendel, an Austrian monk who lived in the 19th century. In 1865, Mendel was studying heredity in pea plants. For eight years, he grew over ten thousand pea plants, looking for patterns that would show him how certain traits were passed on from parent to child (DNA Learning Center, n.d.). After completing his research, Mendel postulated three laws to describe inheritance; they are: the Law of Dominance, the Law of Segregation, and the Law of Independent Assortment. These laws determine the likelihood of the child receiving a specific trait from the parents (Science Clarified, n.d.). Mendel’s discoveries where groundbreaking, especially since it was done prior to the discovery of genes and chromosomes.
Since Mendel’s time, our understanding of DNA, genes, and chromosomes has grown immensely, and much of this understanding and discoveries were influenced by Mendel’s research on pea plants.
In 1928, Frederick Griffith, a medical officer in the army, was trying to find a vaccine that would cure streptococcus pneumoniae; also known as strep throat (C. O’Connor, 2008). Griffith conducted experiments using different strains of
The basis of genetics were established by Gregor Mendel, an Augustinian monk in the mid to late 1800’s. Through the observations from cross-pollinating pea plants, Mendel was able to discover the basic laws of inheritance. Mendel’s experiment was to cross pollinate pea plants and observe how traits were passed on. He started his experiment with two true breeding pods,
This paper explores the history and some interesting facts about DNA. The last couple centuries have seen an exponential growth in our knowledge of DNA. The history of the DNA can be traced back to multiple devoted scientist. This article attempts to summarize, and review the basic history of DNA while providing some fascinating information about it.
The foundation of genetics lies with the principles that Gregor Mendel outlined after his experiments with pea plants where he discovered the relationship between physical characteristics, or phenotype, and genetic traits, or genotype. This experiment aimed to reproduce Mendel’s results with the Brassica rapa plant, noted for it’s fast generation time, and anthocyanin, a purple pigment that can be visually tracked through subsequent generations. It is important for experiments resulting in scientific discovery to be replicable and peer reviewed. Since Mendelian genetics are the foundation of scientific education, including answering questions about
Each human being has something called DNA. DNA is described as genetics and an extremely long macromolecule that is the main component of chromosomes and is the material that transfers genetic characteristics in all life forms. DNA constructs of two nucleotide strands coiled around each other in a ladder like arrangement with the sidepieces composed of alternating phosphate and deoxyribose units and the rungs composed of the purine and pyrimidine bases adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine. Each chromosome consist of one continuous thread-like molecule of DNA coiled tightly around proteins and contains a portion of the 6,400,000,000 basepairs that make up your DNA.
Gregor Johann Mendel was an Austrian biologist whose work on heredity became the modern theory of genetics. Mendel was born on July 22, 1822. Born into a poor farming family and it was difficult for poor families to obtain a good education and Johann Mendel saw the only way to escape a life of poverty was to enter the monastery. Where he was changed his name to Gregor Mendel. This monastery was the Augustinian Order of St Thomas, a teaching order with a reputation as a center of learning and scientific enquiry.
wonder what exactly is DNA? DNA is a term used for deoxyribonucleic acid and it
Gregor Mendel, the father of genetics, discovered principles of inheritance through breeding peas of different color and texture. He crossed several types of peas to investigate dominance relationships, variability, and genetic probability. Through his experiments, he laid down the foundation of inheritance that geneticists use to this day (Griffiths, 2015). From these crosses, Mendel pioneered modern genetics by developing seven laws of inheritance. The first and second law are investigated in this experiment.
As “the father of modern genetics”, Mendel made a huge impact on science by discovering the basic laws of heredity, with dominant and recessive traits. Through these discoveries he inspired many scientists to jump onto genetics and try to replicate his experiment to confirm his results.
DNA is made up of genes, which are small portions of the DNA strand. Genes create cellular protein needed for the body to function. DNA not only creates cellular proteins, but also has the instructions for when and where they will be made. (Racenis 2)
For anyone who’s heard of Mendel’s pea plants should also be familiar with the idea of the heritability of traits. Gregor Mendel was the one accredited with coming up with the idea of genetic heritability; the passing on of traits from parents to their offspring. With his peas, Mendel demonstrated that offspring were not the blended versions of their parents. Mendel also created a list of laws, such as the law of segregation, independent assortment, and of dominance. Each law has been tried and tested, and is now considered absolute truth by the scientific community;
Gregor Mendel is usually known to be the father of modern genetics. But farmers already known for centuries that crossbreeding of animals and plants have favorable trait outcomes. Mendel’s pea plant experiments were conducted between 1856 to 1863 established many of the rules of heredity. Mendel did his experiments at the University of Vienna, Public university in Vienna, Austria.
The origins of DNA were first discovered during 1857 by Gregor Mendel the "Father of Genetics”, whom was performing an experiment of genetics with pea plants, and would provide a basic foundation towards DNA and Genetics. Friedrich Miescher and Richard Altmann in 1869 were also part of the first people to discover DNA. While testing some sperm of a salmon, they discover a strange substance that they would name as "nuclein", which is known as DNA. This new form of "nuclein" (DNA) would be found to only exist in chromosomes. Frederick Griffith, a researcher, found the basis on DNA, from a molecule inheritance experiment involving mice and two types of pneumonia. His findings were that, when virulent disease is heated up (to kill) and is
n the early 1950’s, James Watson, Rosalind Franklin, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins stumbled upon a detailed understanding into the structure of DNA. This is very far from what we would expect from the cohesion of such different people; a bird biologist, an expert in coal structure, a nuclear physicist, and a designer of underwater mines. They used their own understandings, and the ones of many different researchers to find out how traits are passed down to offspring, among all living things.
I would like to nominee Gregor Johann Mendel for the "Carleton Prize for Biotechnology". Gregor Mendel is an Australian Scientist who has been credited for discovery of the science of genetics based on his experiments, breeding peas in the monastery garden at Brünn. He identified the basic genetic heredity of living organism and discovered genetic through an experiment in his garden, (Numbers, R. L. 2015). Gregor Mendel was born on July 20, 1882 in Heinsendorf Bei Odraua, a small village in Australia (Haas, L. F.1998). Mendel’s parent owned farms for
3. Carlson, Elof Axel. Mendel's Legacy: The Origin of Classical Genetics. Cold Spring Harbor, NY: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, 2004. Print