This intriguing report about how the Immune system
detects invaders by using pattern recognition based on
'shape space'. Pattern recognition???? Gotta love
that...
http://www.aip.org/enews/physnews/1998/split/pnu394-2.htm
THE PHYSICS OF THE IMMUNE SYSTEM. When antigens
(viruses, poisons, etc.) invade the body, the vigilant
immune system first senses the danger and then
produces an appropriate response.
To do this, the defenders, a fleet of lymphocytes
possessing as many as 1011 molecular receptors, must
perform a vast program of pattern recognition.
A theory from the 1970's proposed that this process
could be compared to a self-regulating
multiply-connected network of agents. Physicists in
Brazil have now taken the next step by simulating the
immune performance with a system of cellular
automatons, and have successfully modeled the actual
behavior of the mouse immune system.
Rita Maria Zorzenon dos Santos of the Universidade
Federal Fluinense (011-55-21-620-6735,
zorzenon@if.uff.br) and Americo Bernardes of the
Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto have even been able
to simulate correctly the effects of aging on the
immune response.
At the heart of their model is a "shape space" of
possible receptor attributes including, for example,
electrical charge, receptor geometry, and degree of
activation.
Zorzenon dos Santos believes that work on the immune
system might offer insights into the behavior of
complicated physics systems operating at far from
equilibrium conditions. The next step for her immune
research is the attempt to model the evolution of HIV
infection and to study the way in which lymphocytes
are activated in response to malaria. (Physical Review
Letters, 5 October 1998.)
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