Crystal L. Mackall – Candidate for Board of Directors of AACR

The voting for the 2025 AACR Annual Election is now open, where members will vote for the next President-Elect, Treasurer, five Board Members, and four members of the Nominating Committee.

This year, Crystal L. Mackall, MD, FAACR is a candidate for the Board of Directors of AACR.

Crystal L. Mackall is the Ernest and Amelia Gallo Family Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine, where she also serves as the founding director of the Stanford Center for Cell Therapy and director of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy.

She is the associate director and leader of the Cancer Immunology Program at the Stanford Cancer Institute and an active staff member at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital in Palo Alto, California.

Previously, Dr. Mackall was co-executive director of the Laboratory for Cell and Gene Medicine at Stanford School of Medicine (2020-2022) and an endowed professor of pediatrics and medicine (2016-2018).

Before joining Stanford, she held various leadership roles at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), including Chief of the Pediatric Oncology Branch (2008-2015), where she also served as acting branch chief and deputy branch chief.

Dr. Mackall was a tenured principal investigator in the Immunology Section at NCI from 2003 to 2015 and held other significant positions within the NCI’s Experimental Immunology Branch. She also served as a captain in the United States Public Health Service from 1980 to 2010.

Dr. Crystal L. Mackall’s research interests are focused on advancing the field of pediatric oncology and immunotherapy.

She specializes in T cell immunology, with particular emphasis on T cell homeostasis, exhaustion, and the mechanisms of resistance to CAR T cell therapies. Dr. Mackall is dedicated to developing novel cell-based therapies to enhance T cell potency and address the challenges of CAR T cell-related toxicities.

Her work also includes the exploration of treatment options for diffuse midline gliomas, a rare and aggressive type of brain cancer.

Additionally, Dr. Mackall is interested in developing innovative business models to improve access to cell and gene therapies for children, ensuring that cutting-edge treatments are available to underserved pediatric populations.

Her research aims to bridge the gap between laboratory discoveries and clinical application, providing new avenues for treating pediatric cancers and improving patient outcomes.

Dr. Crystal L. Mackall has been an active and influential member of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), contributing to numerous committees and initiatives. She was elected as a Fellow of the AACR Academy in 2022 and currently serves on the AACR IO Ad Hoc Committee (2023-present).

Dr. Mackall chaired the AACR Cancer Research Institute Lloyd J. Old Award in Cancer Immunology Award Selection Committee in 2022 and has been a member of several AACR committees, including the Precision Combination Therapy Task Force (2021-present) and the Pezcoller Foundation-AACR International Award for Extraordinary Achievement in Cancer Research Award Selection Committee (2021-2022).

She also co-led the AACR Team Science Award in 2021 and received the AACR-St. Baldrick’s Foundation Award for Outstanding Achievement in Pediatric Cancer Research that same year.

Her involvement in AACR conferences includes co-chairing the AACR Special Conference on Advances in Pediatric Cancer (2019) and the conference on Immune Cell Therapies for Cancer (2019).

Dr. Mackall has been a senior editor for Cancer Immunology Research and served on the Editorial Board of Molecular Cancer Therapeutics.

Her leadership extends to multiple program committees, including the Annual Meeting Program Committee and the Pediatric Cancer Working Group Steering Committee, reflecting her commitment to advancing cancer immunology and pediatric cancer research.

Education

Dr. Crystal L. Mackall earned her MD from Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine in Rootstown, Ohio, in 1984, after completing a Bachelor of Science in Natural Sciences at the University of Akron in 1980.

She then pursued postdoctoral training in pediatric hematology/oncology as a fellow at the Pediatric Branch of the National Cancer Institute from 1989 to 1992.

Prior to her fellowship, Dr. Mackall completed a combined residency in pediatrics and internal medicine at Children’s Hospital Medical Center of Akron and Akron General Medical Center between 1984 and 1988.

This extensive medical training laid the foundation for her distinguished career in pediatric oncology and immunotherapy.

Honors and Awards

• Recipient, R. Lois Murphy Award, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (2024).
• Honoree, Almanac of Women Leaders in Pediatric Oncology, International Society of Pediatric Oncology (2024).
• Fellow, Academy of Immunooncology (2023).
• Honoree, Top 20 Most Influential Women in Biopharma (2023).
• Honoree, Till and McCulloch Award Lecture, Cell Therapy Transplant Canada (2023).
• Honoree, George Stamatoyannopoulos Award Lecture, American Society for Gene and Cell Therapy (2023).
• Recipient, Edward Netter Leadership Award, Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy (2023).
• Member, Board of Directors (2022-present) and Scientific Founder (2021-present), Link Cell Therapies.
• Elected Member, National Academy of Medicine (2022)

Interviews with Crystal L. Mackall

Meet the Editor: Crystal L. Mackall, MD – American Society of Hematology (26th March, 2013)

Crystal L. Mackall, MD: Fellow of the AACR Academy – American Association for Cancer Research (30th September, 2022)

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