Question

The word ‘gene' was coined by
A. Mendel
B. Hugo de Vries
C. Morgan
D. Johannsen

Answer 1

Hint: Gene is the basic physical and functional unit of heredity.

Complete answer:
The word ‘gene' was coined by Danish botanist Wilhelm Johannsen in the year 1090. In Danish and German ‘gene' is pronounced as ‘gen'.
Genes were coined to describe the fundamental physical and functional units of heredity.

Additional information
- Wilhelm Johannsen was born in Copenhagen.
- He first introduced the term ‘gene' in his book.
- The word ‘gene' was proposed from the Greek word ‘genos’ which means birth.
- He coined this term in contrast to pangene from Darwin’s theory of Pangenesis.
- Later Johannsen also coined the terms ‘genotype’ and ‘phenotype’.
- He is well known for his 1903 “pure line “ experiments in genetics.
- He studied plants and helped found the field of genetics, contributing methods, and concepts of heredity.
- His experiments in plant heredity offered strong support to the mutation theory of the Dutch botanist Hugo de Vries.
- A gene is a sequence of nucleotides in DNA or RNA that encodes the synthesis of a gene product, either RNA or protein.
-Genes contain the data needed to build and maintain cells and pass genetic information to offspring.

So, the correct answer is Johannsen.

Note: William Bateson in 1905 coined the term ‘genetics’ from the word ‘gene’. He was an early geneticist and proponent of Mendel's ideas, he felt the need for a new term to describe the study of heredity and inherited variations. Later Wilhelm Johannsen suggested that the Mendelian factors of inheritance be called genes.