Lorenzo Asti - Universit&agrave; di Roma <i>La Sapienza</i> #
A statistical mechanics approach to autopoietic immune networks 
#
In this work we present a model for a systemic approach to the immune system. In particular we develop 
a model to describe the idiotypic network, namely the network formed by different B-cell clones that interact 
via an antibody/anti-antibody mechanism. The immunoglobulines are modeled as binary strings and the (weighted) 
interaction is based on complementarily rule. In the nodes of the resulting network families of Ising spins are 
placed, whose states represents the quiescent/firing state of a linfocite. With this model the most important 
features of immune system such as low-dose tolerance, dynamical memory, bell shaped response and self/non-self 
distinction are recovered as emergent properties.