T cells are thought to be the reason why if you're previously infected or vaccinated, your chances of suffering a severe disease are much lower. Once they get into your tissues and they're sort of armed and dangerous, they will start to kill cells. Some of that's done with the virus and some of it's done by the immune system itself. How do you model these T cells? I kind of love the way we model the T cells.
How do you model a complex system? Traditionally we would observe how the system is behaving and create equations to mimic this behaviour, but this doesn't work for complex systems. This is because the interactions between agents in a complex system can significantly impact the system's overall behaviour.
In today's episode, Melanie Moses, Professor of Computer Science at the University of New Mexico, will answer this question. She'll introduce us to agent-based models, which are very different to how we traditionally model systems. More specifically, Melanie will explain how she used agent-based models to understand the spread of coronavirus in the lungs.
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