
Biomathematics seminar – Aleksandra Walczak (École normale supérieure – Paris)
Title: Prediction in immune repertoires: learning rules in a self-organised mess
Abstract: Immune repertoires provide a unique fingerprint reflecting the immune history of individuals, with potential applications in precision medicine. Can this information be used to identify a person uniquely? If it really is a personalised medical record, can it inform us about the outcomes of a COVID-19 infection? I will show how even a system as complicated as the immune system has reproducible outcomes. I will then attempt to connect data to phenotypic models of evolution and show how the evolution of pathogens is constrained by selection pressures coming from immune systems. Together, I will present examples of how statistical analysis described immune repertoires on different scales.