Hugo Marie de Vries (n. 16 februarie 1848 - d.

21 mai 1935) a fost botanist olandez i unul dintre

primii geneticieni. I se atribuie introducerea conceptului de gen, redescoperirea legilor ereditii ale
lui Gregor Mendel i dezvoltarea teoriei mutaiilor genetice.
Hugo de Vries este atras de concepia evoluionist[1] i scrie o dizertaie pe tema efectului cldurii
asupra creterii plantelor, lucrare n care a introdus i cteva din afirmaiile lui Darwin.

Redescoperirea geneticii[modificare | modificare surs]

n 1889, de Vries a emis ipoteza existenei "pangenelor", acum numite "gene" i folosit-o ca
argument pentru explicarea mecanismului evoluiei n salturi. Aadar, de Vries confirm i
dezvolt evoluionismul lui Darwin. Pentru aceasta s-a bazat i pe Legile lui Mendel care fuseser
uitate i pe care de Vries le-a redescoperit n 1900.[2]
Pentru a demonstra aceast teorie a "pangenelor", care iniial nu a fost luat n considera ie, de
Vries realizeaz o serie de ncruciri ale plantei Oenothera lamarckiana.[3]

Teoria mutaiilor[modificare | modificare surs]

n locul gradualismului susinut de Darwin, de Vries introduce conceptul de mutaie n salturi.[4] Ca
reacie la stresul exercitat de mediul nconjurtor, pot aprea mutaii radicale la indivizi, chiar n
generaia care succede, astfel aprnd noi specii.

Carl Erich Correns (10 September 1864 14 February 1933) was

a German botanist and geneticist, who is notable primarily for his independent discovery of the
principles of heredity, and for his rediscovery of Gregor Mendel's earlier paper on that subject, which
he achieved simultaneously but independently of the botanists Erich Tschermak von
Seysenegg and Hugo de Vries, and the agronomist William Jasper Spillman.[1]
Carl Correns conducted much of the foundational work for the field of genetics at the turn of the 20th
century. He rediscovered and independently verified the work of Mendel in a separate model
organism. He also discovered cytoplasmic inheritance, an important extension of Mendel's theories,
which demonstrated the existence of extra-chromosomal factors on phenotype. Most of Correns'
work went unpublished however, and was destroyed in the Berlin bombings of 1945.
In 1892, while at the University of Tbingen, Correns began to experiment with trait inheritance in
plants. He focused mainly on the hawkweed plant experiments that Mendel carried out, not being
aware of the pea plant results. Correns published his first paper on 25 January 1900, which cited
both Charles Darwin and Mendel, though without fully recognising the relevance of genetics to
Darwin's ideas. In Correns' paper, "G. Mendel's Law Concerning the Behavior of the Progeny of
Racial Hybrids", he restated Mendel's results and his law of segregation and law of independent
assortement.
After rediscovering Mendel's laws of heredity, which apply to chromosomal inheritance, he undertook
experiments with the four o'clock (Mirabilis jalapa) to investigate apparent counterexamples to

Mendel's laws in the heredity of variegated (green and white mottled) leaf color. Correns found that,
while Mendelian traits behave independently of the sex of the source parent, leaf color depended
greatly on which parent had which trait. For instance, pollinating an ovule from a white branch with
pollen from another white area resulted in white progeny, the predicted result for a recessive gene.
Green pollen used on a green stigma resulted in all green progeny, the expected result for
a dominant gene. However, if green pollen fertilized a white stigma, the progeny were white, but if
the sexes of the donors were reversed (white pollen on a green stigma), the progeny were green.
This non-mendelian inheritance pattern was later traced to a gene named iojap which codes for a
small protein required for proper assembly of the chloroplast ribosome. Even though iojap assorts
according to Mendel's rules, if the mother is homozygous recessive, then the protein is not
produced, the chloroplast ribosomes fail to form, and the plasmid becomes non-functional because
the ribosomes cannot be imported into the organelle. The progeny could have functional copies
of iojap, but since the chloroplasts come exclusively from the mother in most angiosperms, they
would have been inactivated in the previous generation, and so will give white plants. Conversely, if
a white father is paired with a green mother with functional chloroplasts, the progeny will only inherit
functional chloroplasts, and will thus be green. In his 1909 paper, he established variegated leaf
color as the first conclusive example of cytoplasmic inheritance.

Erich Tschermak, Edler von Seysenegg (15 November 1871 11 October 1962) was
an Austrian agronomist who developed several new disease-resistant crops, including wheat-rye
and oat hybrids. He was a son of the Moravia-born mineralogist Gustav Tschermak von Seysenegg.
His maternal grandfather was the famous botanist, Eduard Fenzl, who taught Gregor
Mendel botany during his student days in Vienna.
He received his doctorate from the University of Halle, Germany, in 1896. Tschermak accepted a
teaching position at the University of Agricultural Sciences Vienna in 1901, and became professor
there five years later, in 1906. Von Tschermak is one of four mensee also Hugo de Vries, Carl
Correns and William Jasper Spillmanwho independently rediscovered Gregor Mendel's work
on genetics. Von Tschermak published his findings in June, 1900. His works in genetics were largely
influenced by his brother Armin von Tschermak-Seysenegg.[1]

Erich von Tschermak (1871-1962)

Erich von Tschermak-Seysenegg was born in Vienna, Austria. His father was a well-known
mineralogist, and his maternal grandfather was the famous botanist, Eduard Fenzl, who
taught Gregor Mendel at one point. He studied agriculture at the University of Vienna, and
worked on a farm to gain practical agricultural experience. Tschermak graduated with a
doctorate from the Halle-Wittenberg University.
In 1898, he started doing plant breeding experiments using peas, and by 1900, he had
written up his results. Tschermak, like de Vries and Correns, independently derived
"Mendelian" laws of inheritance from his plant experiments. Because he was younger, and
not as established in the scientific community, Tschermak was worried about the acceptance
of his paper given those of de Vries' and Correns'. However, he was able to rush his paper to
press, and was accorded his share of attention as one of the rediscoverers of Mendel's laws.
Tschermak was a plant breeder, and his hybridization experiments were done with the idea
of improving crops using the laws of heredity. He did most of the work himself, and
produced high-yielding food crops such as wheat, barley, and oats. In 1903, Tschermak was
appointed associate professor at the University of Agricultural Sciences in Vienna, and later
became a full professor. He was a major influence in agriculture and plant breeding in
Austria.

Carl Erich Correns, (born September 19, 1864, Munichdied February 14,
1933, Berlin), German botanist and geneticist who in 1900, independent of, but
simultaneously with, the biologists Erich Tschermak von Seysenegg and Hugo de Vries,
rediscovered Gregor Mendels historic paper outlining the principles ofheredity. In
attempting to ascertain the extent to which Mendels laws are valid, he undertook a
classic study of non-Mendelian heredity in variegated plants, such as the four-oclock
(Mirabilis jalapa), which he established (1909) as the first conclusive example of
extrachromosomal, or cytoplasmic, inheritance (cases in which certain characteristics of
the progeny are determined by factors in the cytoplasm of the female sex cell).
While an instructor of botany at the University of Tbingen (18921902), Correns
conducted research with garden peas, from which he drew the same conclusions that
Mendel had. Surveying the literature on the subject, he discovered the paper that
Mendel had published 34 years earlier. Working at the universities of Leipzig (190209)
and Mnster (190914), Correns helped provide the overwhelming body of evidence in
support of Mendels thesis, anticipating the U.S. geneticist Thomas Hunt Morgans
development of the concept of linkage when he postulated a physical coupling of
genetic factors to account for the consistent inheritance of certain characters together.
In 1914 he was appointed first director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Biology, Berlin,
where he remained until his death.