Dr Christoph Mueller

Dr Christoph Mueller is a Reader in Ageing and Mental Health Data Science at the IoPPN and a Consultant Old Age Psychiatrist at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLaM). He uses real world data from the Clinical Record Interactive Search system (anonymised electronic health records from SlaM) to improve the care of dementia and other mental health conditions in older age.

Christoph is an associate editor for the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry and has a lead role in the ‘Interventions’ theme of the NIHR HealthTech Research Centre in Brain Health.

'Using CRIS for dementia research | CRIS Research Insights | NIHR Maudsley BRC' -  YouTube Video

Professor Leonie Taams

Leonie Taams obtained a PhD in Immunology from Utrecht University, the Netherlands, with a thesis entitled 'Anergic T cells as active regulators of the immune response'. She then undertook postdoctoral studies at the Royal Free and University College Medical School in London. There, with Professor Arne Akbar, she isolated and characterised, as one of the first groups worldwide, human regulatory CD4+CD25+ T cells.

Leonie continued to translate her findings to human inflammatory disease, by studying the presence and function of these cells in rheumatoid arthritis, during her postdoctoral research at the University Medical Centre Utrecht. In early 2003, she took up a Lecturer position at King’s College London, where she is now Professor of Immune Regulation & Inflammation. At King’s, Leonie runs an active research lab that studies fundamental cellular and molecular mechanisms that initiate, perpetuate and regulate immune-mediated inflammation in human health and disease. The lab has a strong interest in tissue immunology, and particularly how immune cells interact with and are influenced by their environment, including stromal and neuronal cells. The lab translates their questions and findings by studying rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and psoriatic arthritis (PsA) as key examples of chronic inflammatory painful diseases and as powerful model systems to investigate the immune system at the site of inflammation in humans. Their long-term goal is to identify novel targets/pathways for therapeutic intervention in inflammatory disease and to better inform treatment decisions. To achieve this, the Taams lab works in a multi-disciplinary environment with strong clinical, academic and industrial collaborations.

Leonie has published over 110 papers, successfully applied for >£20 million in research funding, trained over 45 PhD students, postdocs, research assistants and clinical fellows and supervised many undergraduate and postgraduate students.

In addition to her research and educational activities, Leonie has held many internal and external committee and leadership roles. Currently, she is the Head of the School of Immunology & Microbial Sciences in the Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine at King’s. She co-directs the Wellcome Trust-funded PhD programme in Neuro-Immune Interactions in Health and Disease with Dr Franziska Denk, and is Director of the FOCIS Centre of Excellence at King’s. Leonie is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology, a recipient of the King’s Graduate School Supervisory Excellence Award 2011-2012 and was recently awarded the 2025 Outstanding Contribution to the British Society for Immunology award

Her PhD was in psychiatric epidemiology, focusing on HIV, common mental disorders and access to services in Goa, India. Following her PhD, she developed an interest in broader issues around chronic illness and mental health, in particular, how comorbidity might be best managed and treated to achieve positive physical and mental health outcomes and what systems might be necessary to achieve this.

Professor Ghada Alsaleh

Prof. Ghada Alsaleh trained as a pharmacist before following her ambition to become a scientific researcher, undertaking a MSc and PhD at the University of Strasbourg. Ghada moved to the University of Oxford as a post-doc in 2017 joining the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology, to develop her growing curiosity about the biological processes that contribute towards ageing. In 2021, she established her own research group at Botnar Researche Centre at the University of Oxford to investigate how controlling autophagy can intervene in biological aging and age-related diseases. More recently, Ghada achieved a significant milestone by establishing the United Kingdom's inaugural Space Innovation Lab at the Botnar Institute for Musculoskeletal Sciences.

This pioneering initiative serves as a hub for interdisciplinary collaboration, aiming to advance cellular and molecular biology research within the realm of space exploration. The lab's focus lies in enhancing our comprehension of human physiology and health by investigating the impact of microgravity on aging and age-related diseases