1. Crystal Mackall is the founding director of the Stanford Center for Cancer Cell Therapy.
15 Facts About Crystal Mackall
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Crystal Mackall completed her medical education at Northeast Ohio Medical University, earning her Doctor of Medicine in 1984.
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Crystal Mackall was a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha honour society.
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Crystal Mackall completed an internal medicine and pediatrics Residency at Cleveland Clinic Akron General and Children's Hospital of Akron in 1988.
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In 1989, Crystal Mackall joined the National Cancer Institute as a fellow in pediatric oncology, where she began to focus on immunotherapy for cancer.
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Crystal Mackall has pioneered cancer immunotherapies with a major focus on children's cancers.
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Crystal Mackall's group was among the first to demonstrate impressive activity of CD19 chimeric antigen receptor therapies for childhood leukemia and developed a CAR targeting CD22 that is active in this disease and has received Breakthrough Therapy Designation from the US FDA for treatment of CAR19 refractory B-ALL.
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The CD22-CAR developed by Crystal Mackall's team is active in large B cell lymphoma and has received Breakthrough Therapy Designation from the US FDA for this indication.
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Crystal Mackall's group demonstrated that T cell exhaustion can be reversed by transient T cell rest and demonstrated that dasatinib, a commonly prescribed oral drug, could be used to rest human T cells.
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Crystal Mackall has led clinical trials of cancer vaccines, launched the first clinical trial of recombinant human interleukin-7, led studies of immune checkpoint inhibitors in pediatric cancers and studied a role for bone marrow transplants in pediatric solid tumors.
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In 2018 Crystal Mackall was awarded $11.9 million from the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine to lead a clinical trial using genetically modified T cells engineered to recognize CD19 or CD22 proteins expressed on leukemia or lymphoma.
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In 2022, Crystal Mackall was awarded $11.9 million from the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine to lead a clinical trial using T cells engineered to express GD2-CAR T cells for treatment of diffuse midline gliomas.
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Crystal Mackall holds a number of patents relating to peptides, antigen receptors and T cell fitness enhancements.
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Crystal Mackall has served on the editorial boards of several cancer journals, including Cancer Today.
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Crystal Mackall identifies as LGBT and is married to Catherine L Salem MD.