Related papers: Complexity in the Immune System
One strategy for winning a coevolutionary struggle is to evolve rapidly. Most of the literature on host-pathogen coevolution focuses on this phenomenon, and looks for consequent evidence of coevolutionary arms races. An alternative…
Understanding the observed variability in the number of homologs of a gene is a very important, unsolved problem that has broad implications for research into co-evolution of structure and function, gene duplication, pseudogene formation…
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 this little vision paper we analyze the human immune system from a computer science point of view with the aim of understanding the architecture and features that allow robust, effective behavior to emerge from local sensing and actions.…
We study the maturation of the antibody population following primary antigen presentation as a global optimization problem. Emphasis is placed on the trade-off between the safety of mutations that lead to local improvements to the…
The evolution of many microbes and pathogens, including circulating viruses such as seasonal influenza, is driven by immune pressure from the host population. In turn, the immune systems of infected populations get updated, chasing viruses…
We introduce and analyze a within-host dynamical model of the coevolution between rapidly mutating pathogens and the adaptive immune response. Pathogen mutation and a homeostatic constraint on lymphocytes both play a role in allowing the…
Artificial immune system can be used to generate schedules in changing environments and it has been proven to be more robust than schedules developed using a genetic algorithm. Good schedules can be produced especially when the number of…
Many illnesses are associated with an alteration of the immune system homeostasis due to any combination of factors, including exogenous bacterial insult, endogenous breakdown (e.g., development of a disease that results in immuno…
In order to make a case for or against a trend in the evolution of complexity in biological evolution, complexity needs to be both rigorously defined and measurable. A recent information-theoretic (but intuitively evident) definition…
Organisms have evolved immune systems that can counter pathogenic threats. The adaptive immune system in vertebrates consists of a diverse repertoire of immune receptors that can dynamically reorganize to specifically target the…
The immune system is a cognitive system of complexity comparable to the brain and its computational algorithms suggest new solutions to engineering problems or new ways of looking at these problems. Using immunological principles, a two (or…
The coming 5G networks have been enabling the creation of a wide variety of new services and applications which demand a new network security architecture. Immunology is the study of the immune system in vertebrates (including humans) which…
In this work we analyze the evolution of voluntary vaccination in networked populations by entangling the spreading dynamics of an influenza-like disease with an evolutionary framework taking place at the end of each influenza season so…
The design of protocols to suppress the propagation of viral infections is an enduring enterprise, especially hindered by limited knowledge of the mechanisms through which extinction of infection propagation comes about. We here report on a…
We consider a vaccination game that results with the introduction of premature and possibly scarce vaccines introduced in a desperate bid to combat the otherwise ravaging deadly pandemic. The response of unsure agents amid many…
The adaptive immune system is a dynamical, self-organized multiscale system that protects vertebrates from both pathogens and internal irregularities, such as tumours. For these reason it fascinates physicists, yet the multitude of…
When a biological system robustly corrects component-level errors, the direct pressure on component performance declines. Components may become less reliable, maintain more genetic variability, or drift neutrally in design, creating the…
In this letter we study the full semi-conservative treatment of a model for the co-evolution of a virus and an adaptive immune system. Regions of viability are calculated for both conservatively and semi-conservatively replicating viruses…
The immune system protects the body against health-threatening entities, known as antigens, through very complex interactions involving the antigens and the system's own entities. One remarkable feature resulting from such interactions is…