2022 marks the bicentenary of the birth of Gregor Mendel, the father of modern genetics, who was born in 1822. How to commemorate his 200th birthday? Excavating his body for sequencing, of course. That’s what a team of scientists in the Czech Republic did. Mendel lived and worked in Brno, the second largest city in the Czech Republic, and he is still a hero in his hometown. To celebrate his bicentenary, Jiří Dušek of the Brno Observatory wanted to know whether the father of genetics had received any genetic tests. Geneticist Šárka Pospíšilová says this is the beginning. After research and discussion, scientists found that it was feasible to exhume Mendel’s body from the grave, and only needed the consent of the Augustinians, the religious group to which Mendel belonged. Permission to exhume the grave was obtained after discussions between local religious leaders and the Augustinian Order in Prague and its bishop, as well as the Augustinian Order in Rome. There are five coffins in Mendel’s tomb, stacked one on top of the other. Mendel was the bottom one. His sequencing revealed gene variants associated with diabetes, heart problems and kidney disease. Pospíšilová said she didn’t think Mendel would have minded being a subject of science.
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