Time: Wednesday 3 March, 1115 - 1200
Place: Agricultural University of Norway - NLH, Auditorium U338, "Urbygningen"
Speaker: Professor Claudio Franceschi, University of Bologna, Italy
Claudio Franceschi, distinguished gerontologist and head of the Interdepartmental Center “L. Galvani” for the Study of Biocomplexity , University of Bologna, Italy, will be visiting Norway from 2 - 5 March. During his visit, which is co-hosted by Prof. Erling Seeberg, Centre for Molecular Biology and Neuroscience, Oslo, and Prof. Stig W. Omholt, CIGENE, he will give two talks: One in Oslo entitled "Immunology and genetics of ageing and longevity in humans"
and one in Ås:
The immune system as a complex system: mathematical models of immunosenescence.
The general architecture of the immune system as a complex system involving billions of interacting cells and molecules will be illustrated, paying particular attention to the evolutionary moulded interaction between innate and clonotypical immunity. It will be illustrated how a specific immune response to a particular epitope emerges from a structural background characterized by a high degeneracy and promiscuity of receptors and ligands. The hypothesis will be pursued that the changes that the immune system undergoes on a long temporal scale (immunosenescence) allow us to understand additional characteristics of the system, and particularly the role that chronic antigenic load and “immunological noise” can play in maintaining immunological memory. Two mathematical models regarding this last topic will be illustrated.
