The University of Florida Conference on Theoretical Immunology (UFCTI-2002), May 23-25, 2002, Gainesville, FL

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Pilyugin0124610 The investigator and his colleagues organize a conference ontheoretical immunology. The field of theoretical immunology hasbecome a prominent direction in biomathematics and it concernsmathematical modeling of the biocomplexity in the immune system,and more specifically the generation of immune responses toinfections, generation and maintenance of immune memory,understanding the mechanisms that govern persistent infections,designing optimal strategies for antibiotic treatment ofinfectious diseases, and vaccine development. The main goals ofthis conference are to advance the interaction betweentheoretical and experimental directions of immunological researchand to facilitate a better communication between science andmedicine. The conference focuses on modern approaches tomathematical modeling of immune processes using differentialequations and dynamical systems, game theory, mathematicalstatistics, stochastic processes and computer simulations, aswell as mathematical algorithms for data mining and data fitting.The conference features lectures by prominent scientists onfundamental results in the field as well as reports on work inprogress. A special session is devoted to the discussion of newdirections and most significant problems of theoreticalimmunology in the near future. The immune system is our primary defense against viruses andinfections. Theoretical immunology is a relatively young field ofscience that deals with theoretical modeling of interactionsbetween immune system and invading parasites. Mathematical andcomputer models are used to unify our understanding of theextremely complex functioning of the immune system. Suchtheoretical models allow scientists to sort through the growingwealth of experimental and clinical data and extractfundamentally important features of immunity, design newexperiments, and optimize the performance of drugs and vaccines.The meeting aims to bridge the gap between theoretical andexperimental biology and medicine and advance the theory ofimmune processes to address the current needs of medicine andbiotechnology. The conference has an educational impact byexposing younger researchers and graduate students to the presentchallenges in immunology and facilitating their future scientificcareers.