Dr. Alexander Boyden has been awarded a 2022 American Association of Immunologists (AAI) Early Career Faculty Travel Grant and podium talk for his research entitled “B cell-mediated antigen presentation is required to induce functional pathogenicity of CD4 T cells in a proteolipid protein mouse model of multiple sclerosis” at the American Association of Immunologists annual meeting in Portland, OR on May 6-10, 2022. Building upon Alex’s development of a B cell-dependent, yet antibody-independent mouse model of MS (the first of its kind), this highlighted work identifies the mechanism of B cell-dependency by demonstrating that B cells actively promote demyelinating disease through presenting myelin proteolipid protein antigen to – and critically influencing the proliferation, function, and pathogenicity of – CD4 T cells. This work was performed in collaboration with Pathology Masters graduate student Connor Wilhelm in the Karandikar Laboratory and sheds important light on the pathogenic role B cells play during autoimmune demyelination.