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Immune response depends on mathematics of narrow escapes

General Research

Study finds that shape of immune cells plays key role in recognising invaders.

None © Blausen Medical


The way immune cells pick friends from foes can be described by a classic maths puzzle known as the “narrow escape problem”.

That’s a key finding from a new paper led by Radcliffe Department of Medicine researchers, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study, whose first author is Dr Ricardo Fernandes from the Davis lab, was the result of a close collaboration between biologists, immunologists and mathematicians at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge in the UK, the University of British Columbia in British Canada, and the University of Skövde in Sweden. 

Read more (Radcliffe Department of Medicine website)

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