0:00
Welcome all.
My name is Ruy Ribeiro.
Today, I'd like to talk about
the impact of mathematics
in immunology,
which is a subject that has
a longer history than
one might think.
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Perhaps the first
question is why even talk
about mathematics and modeling
in the context of immunology?
While the immune response
is a very complex
process with many
interacting players,
different types of cells,
myriads of molecules,
cytokines, chemokines,
interleukins.
The processes that these
cells and molecules
mediate are very complex,
redundant and dynamic.
We know from the
history of science that
mathematics is an
appropriate framework to
deal with this
complexity in helping to
explore relationships
and mechanisms.
0:46
That's even more the
case due to the recent
technology and
development explosion
that led to a massive influx in
our capacity to gather data,
exposing even more of the
complexity of the immune response.
However, to transform data into
information and knowledge,
we need a way to
analyze the big data.
Again, mathematics is the
appropriate language for that.
1:12
Of course, mathematics has
an ancient history
of doing just that.
Transforming data
into knowledge.
Is the Earth or the sun at
the center of the universe?
As depicted here,
a representation of the
Ptolemaic Universe.
On the right,
a representation of
the Copernican system.
Well, we know the
answer is neither.
But the point is that
even with hundreds of
years of observations
from many places,
so a lot of data,
the model of the
solar system was
wrong for over 1200 years.
Yet, Aristarchus of Samos,
in the third century
Before the Common Era,
using basic trigonometry
in the figure here,
had already inferred in
texts that are mostly lost,
that the sun is at the center
and the Earth moves around it,
and even spins on itself.
This shows that mathematics
has a long history
of translating data
into knowledge.
