Gregor Mendel. Computer artwork of the Austrian botanist Gregor Johann Mendel (1822-1884) with a pea plant and a strand of DNA (orange and red). Mendel discovered the basic laws of genetic heredity. He became an Augustinian monk in 1843, studied science in Vienna, Austria, during 1851-3 and was made an Abbot in 1868. During 1856-63 he bred pea plants ^I(Pisum^i ^Isp.)^i in his monastery garden. By crossing various pea strains he demonstrated that certain traits were inherited from the parent plants in a predictable way. He is considered to be the founder of genetics. Inherited traits are now known to be carried on DNA ^I(deoxyribonucleic acid)^i as the genetic code.