Novartis Foundation Symposium 254 - Immunoinformatics - Bioinformatic Strategies For Better Understanding Of Immune Function

Immunoinformatics facilitates the understanding of immune function by modelling the interactions among immunological components. Biological research provides ever deeper insights into the complexity of living organisms while computer science provides an effective means to store and analyse large volumes of complex data. Combining the two fields increases the efficiency of biological research and offers the potential for major advances in the study of biological systems.

This book encompasses key developments in immunoinformatics, including immunological databases, sequence analysis, structure modelling, mathematical modelling of the immune system, simulation of laboratory experiments, statistical support for immunological experimentation and immunogenomics.

The difficulties in effective application of bioinformatic tools in immunology arise at both ends of the spectrum: most immunologists have only a limited comprehension of sophisticated data analysis and applicability and limitations, while the average computer scientist lacks knowledge of the depth and complexity of biological data. The purpose of this book, therefore, is to present contributions from a multidisciplinary team of biologists and computer scientists to explore the issues related to better understanding of immune function and, in particular, to help apply new computer science methods to immunological research.

Related Novartis Foundation symposia:

247 In Silico Simulation of Biological Processes

Chair: Denis Noble

252 Generation and effector functions of regulatory lymphocytes

Chair: Jean-François Bach

Immunoinformatics - the new kid in town (V. Brusic & N. Petrovsky).

The fututre of computational modelling and prediction systems in clinical immunology (N. Petrovsky, et al.).

Immunoinformatics in personalized medicine (K. Gulukota).

From immunome to vaccine: epitope mapping and vaccine design tools (A. De Groot & W. Martin).

Insights from MHC-bound peptides (H. Margalit & Y. Altuvia).

General discussion I.

Computation vaccinology: quanitative approaches (D. Flower, et al).

IMGT, the international ImMunoGeneTics information System^®, http://imgt.cines.fr (M. Lefranc).

Generating data for databases—the peptide repertoire of HLA molecules (S. Stevanovic, et al.).

HLA nomenclature and the IMGT/HLA Sequence Database (S. Marsh).

From immunogenetics to immunomics: functional prospecting of genes and transcripts (C. Schönbach).

Mathematical models of HIV and the immune system (D. Wodarz).

General discussion II.

Immunogenomics: towards a digital immune system (S. Beck).

Viral bioinformatics: computational views of host and pathogen (P. Kellam, et al.).

Final general discussion

Closing remarks (H. Rammensee).

Index of Contributors.

Subject Index.