Related papers: Immune cells use active tugging forces to distingu…
We are interested in modeling theoretical immunology within a statistical mechanics flavor: focusing on the antigen-independent maturation process of B-cells, in this paper we try to revise the problem of self vs non-self discrimination by…
Microbiological systems evolve to fulfill their tasks with maximal efficiency. The immune system is a remarkable example, where self-non self distinction is accomplished by means of molecular interaction between self proteins and antigens,…
The immune system normally protects the human host against death by infection. However, when an immune response is mistakenly directed at self antigens, autoimmune disease can occur. We describe a model of protein evolution to simulate the…
Animal cells are active, contractile objects. While bioassays address the molecular characterization of cell contractility, the mechanical characterization of the active forces in cells remains challenging. Here by confronting theoretical…
In the tumour microenvironment, cancer cells directly interact with both the immune system and the stroma. It is firmly established that the immune system, historically believed to be a major part of the body's defence against tumour…
The phenomenon of immunological memory has been known for a long time. But, the underlying mechanism is poorly understood. According to the theory of clonal selection the response to a specific invading antigen (e.g., bacteria) is offered…
At any moment in time, evolution is faced with a formidable challenge: refining the already highly optimised design of biological species, a feat accomplished through all preceding generations. In such a scenario, the impact of random…
A central biological question is how natural organisms are so evolvable (capable of quickly adapting to new environments). A key driver of evolvability is the widespread modularity of biological networks--their organization as functional,…
In biology, the evolution of increasingly cooperative groups has shaped the history of life. Genes collaborate in the control of cells; cells efficiently divide tasks to produce cohesive multicellular individuals; individual members of…
The ability of cells to sense and respond to the mechanical properties of their environments is fundamental to a range of cellular behaviours, with substrate stiffness increasingly being found to be a key signalling factor. Although active…
Quantifying the outcomes of cells collisions is a crucial step in building the foundations of a kinetic theory of living matter. Here, we develop a mechanical theory of such collisions by first representing individual cells as extended…
Understanding why we age is a long-lived open problem in evolutionary biology. Aging is prejudicial to the individual and evolutionary forces should prevent it, but many species show signs of senescence as individuals age. Here, I will…
This chapter introduces evolutionary antifragility as the time-scale interaction characteristics of a natural dynamic system. It describes the benefit derived from input distribution unevenness, based on the emergent system dynamics and its…
From biofilm and colony formation in bacteria to wound healing and embryonic development in multicellular organisms, groups of living cells must often move collectively. While considerable study has probed the biophysical mechanisms of how…
As pathogens spread in a population of hosts, immunity is built up and the pool of susceptible individuals is depleted. This generates selective pressure, to which many human RNA viruses, such as influenza virus or SARS-CoV-2, respond with…
In biological systems, the growth of cells, tissues, and organs is influenced by mechanical cues. Locally, cell growth leads to a mechanically heterogeneous environment as cells pull and push their neighbors in a cell network. Despite this…
Cells generally convert nutrient resources to useful products via energy transduction. Accordingly, the thermodynamic efficiency of this conversion process is one of the most essential characteristics of living organisms. However, although…
A common trait of complex systems is that they can be represented by means of a network of interacting parts. It is, in fact, the network organisation (more than the parts) what largely conditions most higher-level properties, which are not…
Upcoming immunotherapies for cancer treatment rely on the ability of the immune system to detect and eliminate tumors in the body. A highly simplified version of this process can be studied in a Petri dish: starting with a random…
The physical interpretation of the functioning of the adaptive immune system, which has been thoroughly characterized on genetic and molecular levels, provides a unique opportunity to define an adaptive self-organizing biological system in…