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T cells are considered to play a pivotal role in orchestrating the self‐reactive immune responses in multiple sclerosis (MS). Programmed death 1 (PD‐1) is a member of the B7/CD28 superfamily of costimulatory molecules exerting inhibitory functions on T cells. Recently, an intronic 7146G/A polymorphism within the PD‐1 gene was described and suggested to be associated with autoimmunity. We investigated whether this genetic polymorphism is a genetic modifier for risk and progression of MS. Blood samples from 939 German MS patients (mean age, 39 years; range, 13–71; 566 patients [60%] with relapsing‐remitting MS, 279 (30%) with secondary, and 94 (10%) with primary progressive MS) and 272 healthy white controls were tested. Genotyping was performed by polymerase chain reaction and restriction enzyme digestion; results were confirmed by automatic sequencing. A significant association of the …