Genetics zinc finger, to edit the human genome in a way that can be inherited. In April 2015, Chinese researchers reported results of basic research to edit the DNA of non-viable human embryos using CRISPR. Genetics Genetics is a branch of biology concerned with the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms. Gregor Mendel, a scientist and Augustinian friar, discovered genetics in the late 19th-century. Mendel studied "trait inheritance", patterns in the way traits are handed down from parents to offspring. He observed that organisms (pea plants) inherit traits by way of discrete "units of inheritance". This term, still
History of biology been done before. The scientific study of heredity grew rapidly in the wake of Darwin's "Origin of Species" with the work of Francis Galton and the biometricians. The origin of genetics is usually traced to the 1866 work of the monk Gregor Mendel, who would later be credited with the laws of inheritance. However, his work was not recognized as significant until 35 years afterward. In the meantime, a variety of theories of inheritance (based on pangenesis, orthogenesis, or other mechanisms) were debated and investigated vigorously. Embryology and ecology also became central biological fields, especially as linked to evolution and