Tutorial 1. Physics of the Immune System

ANCILLARYEVENT · MAR-1T · ID: MAR-1T

The immune system detects pathogens, acts on them, learns about them and remembers them. The immune system also interacts with other physiological systems to maintain health and potentially cause disease. Underlying these key functions are stochastic dynamic processes driven far from equilibrium that involve many participating components. The past 15 years have witnessed a significant surge of interest among physicists in understanding these processes underlying the immune system. Just one example of the significant and growing interest in this area is that DBIO has held successful focus sessions on the immune system at the March meeting in recent years. The proposed tutorial would enable many physicists, especially young physicists, to be exposed to the field and learn how bringing physics and immunology together can be fruitful. Topics that will be covered include: a brief introduction to the biology of the immune system, quantitative characterization of the enormous diversity of the T cell and B cell repertoires, how T cells become largely self-tolerant and specific to particular pathogens, how the humoral immune system learns (including analogies with learning by machines), and evolution of viruses (e.g., influenza) under the influence of human immune responses. 

Topics covered: 

• Biology of the Immune System
• Quantitative characterization of the T cell and B celwl repertoires
• How T cells become largely self-tolerant and specific to particular pathogens
• How the humoral immune system learns
• Evolution of viruses under the influence of human immune responses