Gregor Mendel monument. Monument commemorating the centenary of the birth of the Austrian botanist Gregor Johann Mendel (1822-1884),the founder of genetics. The monument stands in the garden of the Abbey of Saint Thomas,Brno,Czech Republic,where Mendel conducted his breeding experiments on pea plants. He bred over 30,000 plants from 1856-1863,discovering the statistical laws of heredity. From his results,he postulated the existence of a unit of heredity that is now called the gene. He was the sixth abbot (from 1868) of this Augustinian monastery. The Abbey houses a collection of Mendel relics (the Mendelianum). A new exhibition,The Genius of Genetics,opened here in May 2002 |