With the ink on the published human genome barely dry, an unseemly row has broken out at the monastery where Gregor Mendel founded the study of genetics almost 150 years ago. The argument is over the commemoration of his life and work.

Crossed words: the museum at Brno monastery. Credit: EPA

Mendel first entered the monastery at Brno in the Czech Republic in 1843, and was elected abbot in 1868. His study there of how pea plant characteristics passed between generations revealed the fundamental laws of genetic inheritance.

Now staff at a small museum that is situated in the monastery say that the current abbot, Lukas Evzen Martinec, is threatening to evict them because their museum places too much emphasis on the scientific aspects of Mendel's life. The abbot, they say, wants a new exhibition of Mendel's life that will reflect his religious beliefs as well as his scientific interests.

Martinec confirms that he is unhappy with the low religious content of the museum's display. But he says that his decision to replace it is part of wider plans to develop a new, extended museum. He adds that he gave the existing museum's directors more than a year to come up with a proposal for a new exhibition, and that, having failed to do so, they are mounting a “disinformation campaign” against him.

“Communication with the abbot is non-existent, but we never believed he would go this far,” says Anna Matalova, director of the museum, the Mendelianum.

The museum's display was closed earlier this year and the exhibition hall is due to be refurbished. “The abbot refused to promise that the Mendelianum would be returned to the exhibition hall after the reconstruction,” says Matalova.

The museum also has archives and offices in the monastery, but Martinec recommended in a recent letter that they “consider immediate relocation”. The state-run museum rents the rooms from the monastery, but pays less than a private company would.

Martinec says that the exhibition hall has been “neglected” after “35 years without adequate maintenance”. He is also angry that the museum's owners have not uncovered religious motifs that were hidden during the communist days. He is now preparing a replacement exhibition with help from local university researchers.

Emil Palecek, a molecular biologist at the Czech science academy's Institute of Biophysics in Brno, has seen the abbot's plans and predicts that the new exhibition will be an improvement. He says the refurbishment is an important part of a plan to transform that part of the monastery into a conference centre, and perhaps even a bioinformatics institute.