Rate My Professor Kai-Michael Toellner

Professor Kai-Michael Toellner is a Group Leader in the Immunology programme at the Babraham Institute in Cambridge, having joined in 2024 as a senior group leader. Prior to this, he spent 30 years at the University of Birmingham, beginning as a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Immunology in 1994 under the mentorship of Professor Ian MacLennan, later establishing his own research team and advancing to Reader in Adaptive Immunity and Honorary Professor of Adaptive Immunology in the Institute of Immunology and Immunotherapy. He obtained his Diploma in Biology from the University of Hohenheim, Germany, in 1986, his PhD from the University of Cologne in 1991 for work on the role of germinal centres in affinity maturation and isotype switching, and his Dr. rer. nat. in Biochemistry from the University of Erlangen in 1994 for studies on the physiology of follicular dendritic cells.

Toellner’s research centres on the cellular and molecular mechanisms driving B lymphocyte differentiation into high-affinity antibody-secreting cells and memory B cells during immune responses to vaccination or infection. His group examines processes in lymphoid tissues, including the roles of cytokines from T lymphocytes and stromal cells, antibody and B cell receptor feedback in germinal centre B cell selection, chemokine-mediated B cell migration, B cell-macrophage interactions for adaptation to viral escape, and the regulation of plasma cell and memory B cell output from germinal centres. He has authored over 70 peer-reviewed publications in leading journals, including “Recycling of memory B cells between germinal center and lymph node subcapsular sinus supports affinity maturation to antigenic drift” (Nature Communications, 2022), “Germinal center derived B cell memory without T cells” (Journal of Experimental Medicine, 2022), “IL-21 shapes germinal center polarization via light zone B cell selection and cyclin D3 upregulation” (Journal of Experimental Medicine, 2023), and “A roadmap for defining ‘extrafollicular’ B cell responses” (Immunity, 2025). Toellner has secured major research funding from the MRC, BBSRC, European Union, and Pfizer, contributing significantly to advancements in vaccine design, understanding of autoimmunity, and immune ageing.