A group of scientists decided to sequence the genes of the father of genetics to commemorate the 200th anniversary of his birth.
ARI SHAPIRO is the host.
We're almost done with the celebration of the bicentennial of the birth of the man. The basic rules of heredity were established thanks to his experiments with pea plants. To commemorate the 200 years since his birth, some researchers dug him up and analyzed his genes. NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce gives an explanation.
There is a monastery in the second largest city in the Czech Republic. Two years ago, local researchers were discussing how to commemorate his birth. The person is a geneticist. She says the ideas included a festival. How about doing a genetic analysis of the man?
That was the start.
She is a professor at Masaryk University. She went to different specialists despite the idea being crazy.
The anthropologist had experience with analyses of remains of historical people. I wanted to know how to do that.
If the religious leaders at the monastery gave the go-ahead, the project seemed doable.
They had to ask the Augustinians in the Czech Republic and the bishop in Rome to approve them.
Permission was granted to allow the research team to work. Pardy says it felt monumental.
Everyone feels that he is very important because he is a person that is taught at the first course of genetics at the University.
When looking at things like flower color and plant height, Mendel used math.
To create the formulas, he analyzed a set of about 25,000 plants. He was a visionary and one step ahead of the game.
One of the coffins was stacked on top of the other. It looked like it was at the bottom. The researchers were unsure if it was lined with newspapers that were dated before he died. Pardy said they wanted more evidence.
We came up with the idea of going through his personal possessions because we wanted to confirm his identity.
The curators at the local museum allowed them to take his papers and glasses. The researchers found a hair inside the book. They felt certain that they'd found the body when they looked at all of that and compared it to the skeleton. They were able to find genetic variations linked to diabetes and heart problems. One of the geneticist's variant was particularly interesting.
Daniel had a variety of mental and neurological disorders that caused him to have very severe nervous breakdowns.
He has a variant in his genes that is related to neurological issues.
That might have been an inheritable condition. That was a fascinating discovery made by the scientists.
What would he think about having his genetic material taken and analyzed? He would have liked to rest in peace. He thinks he's pondered this.
I think that he might have been happy with this. It's not possible to directly ask him.
Just before he died, he asked that an autopsy be done on his body. He wanted everything to be looked at scientifically. NPR News has a reporter named "Nellie Greenfieldboyce".
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