In 1962 the Gregor Mendel Department of Genetics was founded in the Moravian Museum at Bruno, taking care of the material from the former Mendel Museum in the Augustinian monastery in Old Bruno. In 1964 two scientists began to work in the department and participated in the organisation of the Mendel Memorial Symposium held in Bruno in 1965, the centenary of the publication of Mendel's discoveries. For that occasion the Department arranged a Mendel Memorial in the former monastery, an exhibition on genetics in the central building of the Moravian Museum, and cooperated in building up an exhibition in Mendel's birthplace. In the jubilee year the publications Fundamenta Genetica and Iconographia Mendeliana were issued. At present the main activity of the department is the research in the Mendeliana, preserved in the State Archives in Bruno. Many new data have been discovered and are published in our series Folia Mendeliana. As a futher task remains the organization of a doucumentation center on the history of genetics.