Prof Ken Duffy helps use maths to predict how well a body will fight disease

Researchers, including a mathematician at NUI Maynooth, have developed a way to use maths to predict how well the body is able to fight disease.

The researchers, Prof Ken Duffy at Maynooth and Prof Philip Hodgkin and his team at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Australia, have also defined for the first time how the scale of the immune response to an attack is controlled.

Immune response

“It was discovered a long time ago that immune system T cells had checks and balances in their immune response,” Prof Duffy said. The researchers used maths to model how the T cells responded not just to one immune signal but to many signals. T cells are a key part of how the body protects itself against invading microbes.

They leap into action if they encounter non-native cells, duplicating and building an army to fight off the intruder.

The researchers found, however, that a collection of signals affects the T cells, with each signal boosting the response and tailoring it to conditions. Their findings are in Science journal.

Signals

The mathematical models they developed allowed them to predict how strong the response would be, on the basis of the various signals reaching the T cell, according to Prof Duffy.

There is an initial response on first contact, then a follow-up encounter as the cells begin to divide, and then another. Each stimulus bumps up the response until it reaches its maximum.

“It is a linear sum in maths and you can increase the signals to get a better response,” he said. This “algebra of understanding” could help in the fight against cancer, he added.