Why a computer needs an immune system and why an immune system needs a computer

Stephanie Forrest
Professor & Chairman, Department of Computer Science, University of New Mexico
Research Professor, Santa Fe Institute, Center for Evolutionary and Theoretical Immunology

Thursday, April 12, 3:15-4:30pm, PSA 118

Natural immune systems are sophisticated information processors. They learn to recognize relevant patterns, they remember patterns that have been seen previously, they use combinatorics to construct pattern detectors efficiently, and they use diversity to promote robustness. Further, the individual cells and molecules that comprise the immune system are distributed throughout our bodies, encoding and controlling the system in parallel with no central control mechanism.

The talk will describe several related projects which are incorporating principles and mechanisms from immunology into computational applications, focusing on applications in computer security. It will also describe how ideas from computer science can be used to further our understanding of biological processes, emphasizing the example of vaccine design for mutating viruses, such as Infulenza.