Rate My Professor Leonie Taams

Professor Leonie Taams is Professor of Immune Regulation & Inflammation and Head of the School of Immunology & Microbial Sciences in the Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine at King’s College London. She earned her BSc in 1991, MSc in 1994, and PhD in Immunology in 1999 from Utrecht University in the Netherlands, with a doctoral thesis entitled 'Anergic T cells as active regulators of the immune response'. She conducted postdoctoral research at the Royal Free and University College Medical School in London, characterizing human regulatory CD4+CD25+ T cells under Professor Arne Akbar, and at University Medical Centre Utrecht, examining these cells in rheumatoid arthritis. In early 2003, she joined King’s College London as a Lecturer, was promoted to Professor in 2015, and has held leadership roles including Head of the Department of Inflammation Biology from 2017 to 2023 and Director of the Centre for Inflammation Biology and Cancer Immunology from 2016 to 2023. She currently directs the Wellcome Trust-funded PhD programme in Neuro-Immune Interactions in Health and Disease and the FOCIS Centre of Excellence at King’s. Taams has supervised over 45 PhD students, postdocs, research assistants, and clinical fellows, along with numerous undergraduates and postgraduates.

The research in the Taams lab focuses on fundamental cellular and molecular mechanisms that initiate, perpetuate, and regulate immune-mediated inflammation in human health and disease, with particular emphasis on tissue immunology, T cell and monocyte function, stromal and neuronal interactions, and their roles in rheumatoid arthritis and psoriatic arthritis. Notable publications include 'CD4+CD25+Foxp3+ regulatory T cells induce alternative activation of human monocytes/macrophages' (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2007), 'CD4+ CD25+ regulatory T cells in rheumatoid arthritis: differences in the presence, phenotype, and function between peripheral blood and synovial fluid' (Arthritis & Rheumatism, 2004), and recent works such as 'Barrier breakdown: insights into the skin–gut axis in psoriatic arthritis' (Trends in Immunology, 2026) and 'Linking Skin and Joint Inflammation in Psoriatic Arthritis through Shared CD8+ T Cell Clones' (Arthritis & Rheumatology, 2025). She received the King’s Graduate School Supervisory Excellence Award in 2012, the Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine Collaborative Research Excellence Award in 2025, and the Outstanding Contribution to the BSI Award in 2025. Taams served as Editor-in-Chief of Clinical & Experimental Immunology from 2017 to 2024, Congress Secretary and Trustee of the British Society for Immunology, and frequently contributes to scientific programme committees, advisory boards, and funding panels.