Simplicity belies a complex system: A response to the minimal model of immunity of Langman and Cohn

Sol Efroni, Irun R. Cohen

Research output: Contribution to journalComment/debate

19 Scopus citations

Abstract

Langman and Cohn have written a paper entitled "If the immune repertoire evolved to be large, random, and somatically generated, then..." This paper uses reductionist logic to prove that the minimal model of immunity proposed by Langman and Cohn is the only reasonable description of the workings of the immune system. Here we analyze the logic behind this model and show that the complexity of the real immune system contradicts the teachings of Langman and Cohn.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)23-30
Number of pages8
JournalCellular Immunology
Volume216
Issue number1-2
DOIs
StatePublished - 2002
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Sol Efroni is a doctoral student in the Department of Immunology and in the Department of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics at the Weizmann Institute of Science; his fellowship is supported by The Feinberg Graduate School and by the Minerva Foundation.

Funding

Sol Efroni is a doctoral student in the Department of Immunology and in the Department of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics at the Weizmann Institute of Science; his fellowship is supported by The Feinberg Graduate School and by the Minerva Foundation.

FundersFunder number
Department of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics
Feinberg Graduate School
Minerva Foundation
Weizmann Institute of Science

    Keywords

    • Complex systems
    • Emergence
    • Immunological Homunculus
    • Reductionism
    • Self-non-self discrimination
    • Specificity

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