Staff News at CCR

Announcements

Crystal Mackall, M.D.
Mackall has been appointed Chief of the Pediatric Oncology Branch, having served as Acting Chief since 2005. She came to NCI in 1989 as a Clinical Fellow in pediatric hematology/ oncology under the auspices of Ronald Gress, M.D., Chief of the Experimental Transplantation and Immunology Branch at CCR.

She and her team are currently developing immunotherapies that can be integrated into current treatment modalities. The vast majority of children with pediatric cancer are treated with multiagent chemotherapy, often resulting in lymphocyte depletion. To exploit these immune physiology changes, Mackall has developed immune-based therapies that are given during lymphocyte depletion, thus enhancing immune reactivity toward the tumor when a child’s tumor burden is low. She has also led the clinical development of recombinant IL-7 (rhIL7), a cytokine with potent effects on T cell homeostasis and immune reconstitution.

Mackall completed a fast track B.S./M.D. program at the Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine and a combination residency in pediatrics and internal medicine

Samuel Wells, Jr., M.D.
Wells is a board-certified surgeon and expert in thyroid cancer. Currently a Professor of Surgery at Washington University and Executive Director of the International Thyroid Oncology Group, Wells divides his time between St. Louis and Bethesda.

With CCR colleagues, he has opened a new pediatric clinical study of hereditary medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC). This inaugural trial of the new thyroid program will assess the safety, tolerance, and activity of vandetanib in children and adolescents with hereditary MTC.

He is a longstanding member of the Institute of Medicine and has received 13 major scientific awards, including the American Surgical Association Medallion for Scientific Achievement (2004). An honorary fellow in six international surgical colleges, he has also been president of seven major surgical societies, editor-in-chief of three major journals, and author or coauthor of over 250 peer-reviewed articles and 70 book chapters. From 1998–2005, he chaired the Oncology Group of the American College of Surgeons.

New Tenure-Track Scientists

Mitchell Ho, Ph.D.
Ho joins CCR's Laboratory of Molecular Biology as a Tenure-Track Investigator. A recipient of the Mesothelioma Applied Research Foundation Award and Ovarian Cancer Research Fund Investigator Award, Ho will conduct mechanistically based, translational research leading to the development of more effective anti-cancer antibody therapies. His efforts focus on building new therapeutic antibodies directed at mesothelioma, ovarian cancer, and liver cancer.

Mitchell received his Ph.D. in immunology from the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign, and he received postdoctoral training here at NCI.