Artificial immune systems are intelligent algorithms based on how the immune system learns and remembers, which could change its ability to defend itself against biological and technological intruders.
health
January 31, 2023
Using AI to replicate the immune system reveals how it works Skorzewiak/Alamy
One of the most important functions of the immune system is its ability to learn and remember. This is a kind of biological intelligence that only the brain can match. And just like the brain, researchers are trying to artificially replicate this intelligence. By creating an AI, called artificial immunological intelligence (AII), we can also gain a better understanding of the immune system and use it in computing to prevent malicious intruders from harming the immune system.
The intelligence of the brain is embodied in connections between fixed neurons, whereas the intelligence of the immune system is based on transient interactions between mobile immune cells. However, the principle is the same and both can be replicated by computer programs.
Over the past few years, Johannes Textor and his colleagues at Radboud University in the Netherlands have constructed AII in the form of a computer-based population of simulated T cells. Each simulated immune cell has unique characteristics and collectively learns through reinforcement to use cells that actively contribute to eliminating replication of the simulated pathogen and those that do not die. .
Already, AII is helping immunologists solve age-old problems. For example, Textor and his colleague Inge Wortel built his AII to test a long-standing idea in immunology that describes how T cells learn what threats are.
Actual T cells have surface receptors that recognize proteins or fragments of proteins called peptides displayed on the surface of other cell types. These peptides are…
