Crystal Mackall

Crystal L. Mackall (born August 21, 1960) is an American physician and immunologist.  She is currently the Ernest and Amelia Gallo Family Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine at Stanford University. She is the founding director of the Stanford Center for Cancer Cell Therapy.

Mackall grew up in East Palestine, Ohio in a working class family; her father was a steelworker. She received her medical training through a six year BS/MD program, earning her bachelor's degree at the University of Akron and graduated summa cum laude. She completed her medical education at Northeast Ohio Medical University, earning her Doctor of Medicine in 1984. She was a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha honour society. Mackall completed an Internal Medicine and Pediatrics Residency at Cleveland Clinic Akron General and Children’s Hospital of Akron in 1988. In 1989, Mackall joined the National Cancer Institute as a fellow in Pediatric Oncology, where she began to focus on immunotherapy for cancer.  She remained at National Institutes of Health until 2016, eventually serving as the Chief of the Pediatric Oncology Branch. She moved to the Stanford University School of Medicine in 2016.  She is Board Certified in Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, and Pediatric Hematology/Oncology.

Mackall has pioneered cancer immunotherapies for children. Her early research defined the effects of traditional cancer therapies on the immune system, where she identified the role of the thymus in human T cell regeneration and discovered that Interleukin-7 (IL-7) is the main regulator of T cell homeostasis in humans. Her group was among the first to demonstrate impressive activity of CD19 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR T cells) therapies for childhood leukemia and also developed a CAR targeting CD22 that was active in this disease.

Mackall has also worked on cancer vaccines, immunomodulation therapy and bone marrow transplants. She received the Lila and Murray Gruber Award for Cancer Research in 2019,In 2018 Mackall was awarded $11.9 million to lead a clinical trial using genetically modified immune cells that will recognise proteins in leukemia. The trial will be conducted at the Stanford Center for Cancer Cell Therapy. She will modify the chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) to identify B-cell prolymphocytic leukemia and B-cell lymphoma.

Mackall holds a number of patents relating to peptides and antigen receptors. She has served on the editorial boards of several cancer journals, including Cancer Today.

Awards and honors

Her awards and honors include;

• 2005 American Society for Clinical Investigation Member
• 2006-2018 Best Doctors in America Member
• 2015 Association of American Physicians and Surgeons Member
• 2017 American Association for Cancer Research Chair of the Pediatric Cancer Working Group
• 2018 Top 10 Clinical Research Award Top 10 Clinical Research Award for New CAR-T Cell Therapy for Relapsed Leukemia
• 2018 American Academy of Dermatology Lila and Murray Gruber Memorial Cancer Research Award

Mackall is married to Catherine Salem MD.  They have two sons.