Studies of immunoregulatoric mechanisms with computer models.

As for many other biological systems, regulation is a keyword for the immune system.
However, the regulation of immune responses is a complex phenomenon, in which the antigen, accessory cells and lymphocytes all contribute in multiple ways.
There are both mechanisms that function to prevent lymphocyte activation and to shut off responses that have been initiated and those that enable activation of lymphocytes.
The complexity of these mechanisms come from the huge number of participants and their variance according to the physiological state of the individual. This complexity has prevented answering many questions concerning the regulation mechanisms of the immune system.
The goal of a computer model is to reduce components of a system into a minimum so that the results are possible to be analysed.
The aim of this specific project is to study three
groups of immunoregulatoric mechanisms
with computer models. The model systems we used so far include
hyper cellular automata, genetic algorithms and ordinary differential
equations.
Main focus areas are:
- Regulatory Networks of Idiotypes and Antidotypes:
- The regulatory function of the antigen: LCMV as a case study.
a. Clonal exhaustion
b. Neutralizing antibody production.
Regulation in germinal centers:
a. Kinetics of a germinal center reaction
b. Affinity and specificity maturation in germinal centers