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

皮尔尤金和他的同事们组织了一次理论免疫学会议。理论免疫学领域已经成为生物数学中的一个重要方向，它涉及对免疫系统中生物复杂性的数学建模，更具体地说，涉及对感染的免疫反应的产生、免疫记忆的产生和维持、理解持续感染的机制、设计感染疾病的抗生素治疗的最佳策略以及疫苗开发。这次会议的主要目的是促进免疫学研究的理论和实验方向之间的互动，并促进科学和医学之间更好的交流。会议的重点是使用微分方程式和动力系统对免疫过程进行数学建模的现代方法、博弈论、数理统计、随机过程和计算机模拟，以及数据挖掘和数据拟合的数学算法。会议的特色是著名科学家关于该领域基本成果的讲座以及关于工作进展的报告。特别会议专门讨论理论免疫学在不久的将来的新方向和最重要的问题。免疫系统是我们抵御病毒和感染的主要防御系统。理论免疫学是一个相对年轻的科学领域，它研究免疫系统和入侵寄生虫之间相互作用的理论模型。数学和计算机模型被用来统一我们对免疫系统极其复杂的功能的理解。这些理论模型允许科学家整理日益增长的实验和临床数据，提取免疫的根本重要特征，设计新的实验，并优化药物和疫苗的性能。会议旨在弥合理论和实验生物学与医学之间的差距，并提出免疫过程理论，以满足当前医学和生物技术的需求。这次会议通过让年轻的研究人员和研究生接触免疫学方面的当前挑战，并促进他们未来的科学职业生涯，产生了教育影响。

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.