Professor
King's College London, United Kingdom
Prof Leonie Taams, King's College London, 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.
In addition to her research activities, Leonie is the Director of the Centre for Inflammation Biology and Cancer Immunology (CIBCI) at King’s, and Head of the Department of Inflammation Biology, both in the School of Immunology & Microbial Sciences. She is also Director of the FOCIS Centre of Excellence at King’s and Editor-in-Chief of the journal Clinical and Experimental Immunology.
