Eugene P. Cronkite
Brookhaven National Laboratory
December 11, 1914 - June 23, 2001
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Scientific Discipline: Medical Genetics, Hematology, and Oncology Membership Type:
Member
(elected 1981)
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Biologist Eugene P. Cronkite was the first scientist to recognize and document the links between cancer and exposure to sub-lethal levels of radiation. He directed a study on the effects of fallout from nuclear weapons testing on inhabitants of the Marshall Islands in 1954, and he described the likelihood of survival under varying degrees of radiation exposure and its effects on the central nervous system. He was the first to study radiation’s effects on bone marrow cells, leading to the implementation of extracorporeal radiation for leukemia treatment in 1965. Cronkite made advances in lymphopoiesis, immunity, and transplantation by studying the formation and functions of leukocytes, or white blood cells, in the immune system. He developed a method of growing human blood and blood-forming cells from bone marrow, outside of the body. This made it possible to grow cells from the blood of leukemia patients, which were used to test the effectiveness of drug therapies. He also initiated the construction of Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Center for Treatment of Acute Radiation Injury.
Cronkite attended Stanford University, receiving his B.A. degree in 1936 and his M.D. degree in 1941. During World War II, he served as a lieutenant for the U.S. Navy’s Medical Corps. In 1946, he became head of the Naval Medical Research Institute’s Hematology Division. After directing a project that studied fallout in the Marshall Islands in 1954, Cronkite resigned from the U.S. Navy as commander of the Medical Corps. The following year, he accepted a position as senior physician and head of the Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Division of Experimental Pathology and as a hematologist for the lab’s Hospital of the Medical Research Center. He continued working at Brookhaven, becoming chairman of the Medical Department in 1967. The next year, Cronkite was appointed Professor of Medicine for the State University of New York at Stony Brook, as well as dean of Brookhaven’s Clinical Campus. He was associated with numerous scientific societies that included the American Federation of Clinical Research, the American Physiological Society, the American Society of Hematology (president in 1970), and the International Society for Experimental Hematology (president in 1977). Cronkite was the recipient of the Ludwig Heilmeyer Medal for Research in Internal Medicine and Hematology in 1974.
