Congratulations to successful PhD Defense Javier Pareja Román

On June 6, 2024 Javier Pareja Román, student of the Cutting Edge Microscopy (CEM) program under the supervision of Prof. Britta Engelhardt, has successfully defended his PhD thesis with the title: "Unveiling the cellular and molecular pathways of CD8 T cell migration into the CNS"

During my PhD I have been investigating different antigen dependent and antigen independent mechanisms that regulate the migration of CD8 T cells across the different CNS barriers during health and neuroinflammation. In particular we have shown that CD8 T cells arrested on the blood-brain barrier (BBB) can recognised antigens presented on the luminal surface of the endothelium. These interactions halt the CD8 T cells and reduce their transmigration, eventually leading to BBB breakdown contributing to the exacerbation of neuroinflammation.

In addition, I have intensely used different microscopy techniques to characterise novel reporter mouse models for intravital imaging of the meninges at the surface of the CNS and the glia limitans, with the goal of investigating in vivo the trafficking of CD8 T cells across this CNS barriers.