Professor Leonie Taams

Biography

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'. Leonie 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. Leonie has trained over 45 PhD students, postdocs, research assistants and clinical fellows and supervised many more undergraduate and postgraduate students.

In addition to her research and educational activities, Leonie is the Head of the School of Immunology & Microbial Sciences in the Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine at King’s. She also directs the Wellcome Trust-funded PhD programme in Neuro-Immune Interactions in Health and Disease, and is Director of the FOCIS Centre of Excellence at King’s.

Previously, Leonie was Head of Department of Inflammation Biology (2017-2023) and Director of the Centre for Inflammation Biology and Cancer Immunology (CIBCI) at King’s (2016-2023). She held substantive teaching & education roles, including Deputy Director and Chair of the Assessment Sub Board of the MSc Immunology, module organizer and personal tutor. She was Congress Secretary of the British Society of Immunology (BSI) and a BSI Trustee (2014-2017) and served for 8 years as the Editor-in-Chief of the BSI journal Clinical and Experimental Immunology (2017-2024). She frequently serves as a member of national and international scientific programme committees, advisory boards and funding panels. Leonie is a recipient of the King’s Graduate School Supervisory Excellence Award 2011-2012.

Bluesky: @taamslab.bsky.social