Theoretical immunology : Proceedings of a one-day symposium held april 1989

Abstract

The immune system is a genuine example of an information processing system. Information in the immune system is present in the form of antigens (self and non-self) and receptor molecules. These are information-bearing structures that interact upon complementary matching. Embedded in a universe of > 10⁵ self antigens, the immune system is able to pick up novel information (i.e., foreign antigen) and is able to remember it specifically (i.e., immunological memory). These information-processing (or cognitive) properties of the immune system arise somehow from the cellular and molecular interactions between the components of the system. The immune system is composed of many different cell types and molecules. This enormous complexity hampers our understanding of the "functioning" (or information processing) of the immune system. Theoretical immunology aims to tackle this problem. By coupling the interactions described by immunologists in theoretical models, one is able to study the (possibly coordinate) behaviour that emerges.