What is Genetics

Genetics is a branch of biology that studies the phenomenon and laws of heredity and variability of organisms a first step in the development of cell and molecular biology. Genetics has become one of the most important sciences of the twentieth century.

The earliest observations on the transmission of hereditary characteristics from parents to offspring were found on stone tablets old for over 6,000 years. The stone was discovered in the eastern area of the city of Ur in Elam, Chaldeea and is the pedigree of five generations of horses. On the tablet there are printed instructions on how the shape of the head and hooves are hereditary transmitted on horses. Heredity characters, the way that a child inherits traits from both the mother and the father, has been observed since antiquity. Scientific demonstrations of this was done only in the nineteenth century, more precisely within the experiments carried out by the Austrian monk Gregor Mendel considered the father of genetics.

His observations revealed the laws of hereditary transmission of character, called Mendel's laws. Mendel read his paper 'Versuche uber Pflanzen-Hybriden' ('Experiences on plant hybridization') at two meetings of the Society of Natural History in Moravia in 1865. The publication of his work had then a little impact, being cited only three times in the next 35 years.

The true recognition of the importance of his discovery was made only at the beginning of the twentieth century when Hugo de Vries, Carl Correns and Erich von Tschermak Erich came independently to the same conclusions as Mendel, thus rediscovering the laws of heredity. In 1903 appears the theory that chromosomes are the bearers of heredity, and in 1909 that genes are located on chromosomes. In 1906, William Bateson introduced the term of genetics. In 1927, the concept of mutation is introduced to describe the changes suffered by the genetic material. In 1953 it was deciphered that the DNA structure is helical and double-stranded and in 1957 it is described the mechanism of DNA replication.