HWS News
7 August 2026 • Alums Dr. Robert Gale ’66 featured in CNN’s Disaster: The Chernobyl Meltdown
Leukemia and bone marrow disorders expert Dr. Robert P. Gale ’66 who coordinated medical relief efforts for victims of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Accident interviewed on CNN docuseries.
Dr. Robert Peter Gale, a renowned American physician and Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine, is featured in one episode of the CNN docuseries Disaster: The Chernobyl Meltdown.
The series, a co‑production between CNN, National Geographic International and UK producer Windfall Films, is described as “A gripping four-part docuseries that revisits the catastrophic 1986 Chernobyl meltdown and traces its reverberations through history, culminating in the present-day war in Ukraine. Chernobyl delivers unprecedented access to exclusive interviews, raw archival footage, and a narrative that exposes the cover-up, human cost, and geopolitical consequences of one of the world's most infamous disasters.”
In episode two of the series, Dr. Gale discusses his involvement in traveling to the Soviet Union in 1986 to help coordinate medical relief and perform bone marrow transplants on the most severely affected victims. Dr. Gale coordinated the international medical response team for the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. In the years since, he has aided in relief efforts during other international nuclear incidents.
During the course of his more than 45-year career in medicine, Dr. Gale has changed the world’s understanding of leukemia, bone marrow disorders, their treatments and the effects of nuclear radiation. Focusing primarily on leukemia, transplantation, cancer immunology and the biological effects of radiation, Dr. Gale has published more than 950 scientific articles and more than 20 books.
In addition to his contributions to medicine, Dr. Gale is widely recognized for his humanitarian activities. He served as a war observer for the governments of Croatia and Armenia; a medical consultant to Tartarstan; and special consultant to the UN Emergency Disaster Relief Organization proposed by the Soviet Union. He has provided expert testimony to several U.S. Congressional Committees on health policy issues, and consulted for a variety of governmental health care and research agencies at the state and federal levels.
For these service activities and others, Dr. Gale has been honored with the Olender Peace Award, the City of Los Angeles Humanitarian Award, the Myasthenia Gravis Foundation Humanitarian Award and the Presidential Award from New York Academy of Science, among many others. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986.
After earning a B.A. in biology and chemistry, with Honors, from Hobart, and his M.D. from the State University of New York at Buffalo, Dr. Gale completed his postgraduate medical training in internal medicine, hematology and oncology at UCLA. There, he also received a Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology, funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Leukemia Society of America, where he was the Bogart Fellow and Scholar. Dr. Gale holds several honorary degrees, including a D.Sc. from Albany Medical College and a D.P.S. from MacMurray College. In 1987, HWS awarded him an honorary degree, and in 1990, the Hobart College Alumni Association conferred upon him its highest honor, the Hobart Medal of Excellence.
You can watch CNN’s Disaster: The Chernobyl Meltdown during its scheduled airings on CNN or subscribe to view on CNN’s streaming platform. The series can also be viewed on demand on select streaming services including YouTubeTV, DIRECTV and Apple TV, or you can purchase the series to view on Prime Video.
