Introduction to Genetics

Introduction to Genetics


As the name suggests, it is related to genes. Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation and Heredity in living organisms. It is a very important branch of bio sciences or life sciences.
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DNA


For maintenance of species and their continuity living organisms reproduce. While reproducing what exactly happens is the genetic material gets replicated. The DNA or RNA is the genetic material. For the replications to take place some basic compounds or bio molecules are required. They are synthesized by some particular process.For example protein synthesis is the process to synthesize protein.The characters which are to be expressed in the next generation follow some particular laws. The genes can now be recombined and modified to obtain desirable features in the living creature.So all this comes under genetics.This is branch with a very huge scope and its demand is increasing day by day.

Gregor Johann Mendel is the father of Genetics as he performed series of experiments on garden pea plants.He proposed some laws of inheritance and his epoch making was known as Mendelism. After him many other scientists too performed experiments which proved various facts in genetics.We will study Mendels Experiment in the next post.

Some important definitions :

Genetics- It is the branch of biology that deals with the heredity and variations.
Heredity-It is defined as the transmission of characters from one generation to the next or from parent to offspring's.
Variations- These are the differences between the parents and offspring's, among the offspring's and among the individuals of all species.
Inheritance-transmission of characters
DNA- Deoxyribonucleic acid which acts as the genetic material in some organisms including human
RNA-Ribonucleic acid which acts as genetic material in some organisms 

These definitions are very important.

Let us discuss Mendel's laws and experiments in the next post.

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Mendel's Experiment and his laws 1

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In last Article we understood what is genetics and what are its applications , now let us study Mendelian genetics.i.e. the experiments carried out by Mendel and the laws proposed by him. Gregor Johann Mendel A priest and teacher from Brunn was sent to university of Vienna for higher studies in physics, mathematics and natural sciences. In 1856 he started his experiments on garden peas(Pisum sativum). Unfortunately his work had remained unnoticed for many years till the findings were rediscovered by three scientists independently. They are- 1.Hugo De Vries from England 2.Karl Correns from Germany 3.Erich Tschermak from Austria Based on Mendel's principle Correns postulated three laws which are known as Mendel's laws of inheritance. Before studying Mendel's experiments let us get introduced to some important terms: Character- It is a feature of an organism.Ex. Height, seed colour,etc. Trait- An inherited character and its desirable variant.E
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Mendel's Experiment and his laws 2

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