Children of the workers who cleaned up after the Chernobyl nuclear reactor exploded in April 1986 are showing mutations in their DNA decades later, according to researchers at the University of Bonn in Germany.
The former Chernobyl reactor is located in Ukraine, which was part of the USSR in the 1980s. After the explosion, vast amounts of radiation were released in the area.
In a June 2025 study, the university discovered these children had higher levels of clustered de novo DNA mutations (cDNMS), a special type of mutation due to radiation exposure, researchers told multiple news outlets.
The scientists sequenced the genomes of 130 children of exposed workers, 110 children of German military personnel and 1,275 children with no known exposure. The study found that the children of Chernobyl workers had more than twice as many mutations as the control group.
The higher parental radiation dose correlated with more clusters, the researchers said.
The health risk should be small and should not increase the risk of disease, according to Scientific Reports, as cDNMS falls into “non-coding DNA” and is unlikely to affect protein function.
However, the study found that ionizing radiation exposure can leave notable genomic changes across generations.
On average, children of cleanup workers had 2.65 clustered mutations per child, compared with 1.48 in the children of German military personnel and 0.88 in the control group.
• Juliet La Sala can be reached at jlasala@washingtontimes.com.
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