Principles of Genetics

Genetics, the science of biological inheritance, has made extraordinary
progress since its simple beginnings in the 1850s. It all started in a Czech
monastery garden as the lone studies of a monk, Gregor Mendel. Mendel’s
pivotal work was at the time largely ignored, and was almost lost to science.
Yet eventually his pioneering work led to scientific and technological
developments at an ever-increasing pace. Today genetics is a powerful
science, with its crowning glory being the total unravelling and decoding of
the entire human genome. Never before has genetics had the capability to
impact so broadly and incisively on our society and our way of life. It has
provided a new means of establishing guilt and innocence in criminal
prosecutions, it is central in building a better understanding of both
infectious and inherited diseases, as well as cancer. Genetics has also
enabled approaches for the medical treatment of a very wide range of
diseases. Finally it offers prospects for new developments in food
production. However all of these advances have their potential limitations
and drawbacks.