Shailesh K. Shahi, PhD, Assistant Professor in the Department of Pathology, has received the Early Career Faculty Travel Grant Award from the American Association of Immunologists (AAI) to attend the annual IMMUNOLOGY2026 meeting, which will be held April 15–19, 2026, in Boston, Massachusetts.

At the 2026 AAI Annual Meeting, research from Dr. Shahi’s laboratory will be presented under the title “Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 Receptor Agonists Ameliorate Obesity-Driven EAE Severity in HLA Class II Transgenic Mice.”  The study investigates how GLP-1 receptor agonists, a class of metabolic drugs widely used to treat obesity and diabetes, influence immune responses and disease severity in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), a commonly used animal model of multiple sclerosis (MS). 

The research investigates the complex interactions among metabolism, gut microbiota, and immune-mediated neurological disease, with the goal of understanding how obesity may worsen MS. Insights from this work may help guide future studies aimed at developing therapeutic strategies for managing obesity-associated progression of MS.

Dr. Shahi’s participation in the AAI Annual Meetings highlights his ongoing research focus on immune regulation and host-microbiome interactions in MS.