Physics can help make sense of immune system dynamics

The task of understanding the dynamics of the immune system has been gaining increasing importance, as a consequence of progress in immunotherapy applied to cancer and due to the importance of vaccines, as with the COVID-19 pandemic. This talk will survey examples which show physics can help address some of the important conceptual and also practical issues that arise in this research area. Specific issues to be discussed includes the detection of neoantigens (immune-activating enzymes on the outside of a cancer cell) as a way to target tumor cells, the spatiotemporal dynamics of immune cell infiltration into tumors, the ecology of the immune microenvironment and the role of evasion by both cancer cells and evolving viruses.