History of genetics History of genetics The history of genetics dates from the classical era with contributions by Hippocrates, Aristotle and Epicurus. Modern biology began with the work of the Augustinian friar Gregor Johann Mendel. His work on pea plants, published in 1866,what is now Mendelian inheritance. Some theories of heredity suggest in the centuries before and for several decades after Mendel's work. The year 1900 marked the "rediscovery of Mendel" by Hugo de Vries, Carl Correns and Erich von Tschermak, and by 1915 the basic principles of Mendelian genetics had been applied to a wide variety of organisms—most notably the fruit fly
Introduction to genetics Introduction to genetics Genetics is the study of heredity and variations. Heredity and variations are controlled by genes—what they are, what they do, and how they work. Genes inside the nucleus of a cell are strung together in such a way that the sequence carries information: that information determines how living organisms inherit various features (phenotypic traits). For example, offspring produced by sexual reproduction usually look similar to each of their parents because they have inherited some of each of their parents' genes. Genetics identifies which features are inherited, and explains how these features pass from generation to generation. In