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SUMMARY:Abdus Salam Distinguished Lecture Series 2025  "Prediction in immu
 ne repertoires: learning rules in a self-organised mess" by Prof. Aleksand
 ra Walczak\, École normale supérieure\, Paris  Lecture 1: " How personal
 ised is your immune repertoire?"
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20250127T100000Z
DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20250127T113000Z
DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20260419T092113Z
UID:indico-event-10923@ictp.it
DESCRIPTION:\n	The 2025 Salam Distinguished Lecture Series will feature th
 eoretical biophysicist Aleksandra Walczak.\n	 \n	Aleksandra Walczak recei
 ved her PhD in physics at the University of California\, San Diego\, worki
 ng on models of stochastic gene expression. After a graduate fellowship at
  KITP\, she was a Princeton Center for Theoretical Science Fellow\, focusi
 ng on applying information theory to signal processing. Currently she is a
  CNRS research director at the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris\, interes
 ted in collective behaviour\, fly development and statistical descriptions
  of the immune system. She was awarded the “Grand Prix Jacques Herbrand 
 de l’Académie des sciences" in 2014\, the bronze medal of CNRS in 2015\
 , the American Physical Society Fellowship\, the Prix Jean Ricard of the F
 rench Physics Society in 2021 and the silver medal of CNRS in 2024.\n	 \n
 	The Salam Distinguished Lecture Series is an annual presentation of talks
  by renowned\, active scientists. The aim is to showcase important researc
 h developments as well as provide a visionary forward view. The lecture se
 ries is generously supported by the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement 
 of Sciences (KFAS). The overarching title of the three talks will be:\n\n	
 "Prediction in immune repertoires: learning rules in a self-organised mess
 "\n\n	 \n\n	 \n\n	Abstract:\n	Immune repertoires provide a unique finger
 print reflecting the immune history of individuals\, with potential applic
 ations in precision medicine. Can this information be used to identify a p
 erson uniquely? If it really is a personalised medical record\, can it inf
 orm us about the outcomes of a COVID-19 infection? I will show how even a 
 system as complicated as the immune system has reproducible outcomes. Yet 
 predicting the future state of a complex environment requires weighing the
  trust in new observations against prior experiences. In this light\, I wi
 ll present a view of the adaptive immune system as a dynamic Bayesian mach
 inery that updates its memory repertoire by balancing evidence from new pa
 thogen encounters against past experience of infection to predict and prep
 are for future threats. I will then attempt to connect data to phenotypic 
 models of evolution and show how the evolution of pathogens is constrained
  by selection pressures coming from immune systems. Together\, I will pres
 ent examples of how statistical analysis described immune repertoires on d
 ifferent scales.\n	 \n	There will be 3 lectures with the following titles
 :\n	 Lecture 1: How personalised is your immune repertoire? \n	Monday\, 2
 7 January 2025 starting at 11:00 hrs\n	 Lecture 2: Viral—immune co-evol
 ution  \n	Monday\, 27 January 2025 starting at 14:00 hrs\n	Light refreshm
 ents will be served after the talk.\n	 Lecture 3: Optimal immune systems\
 n	Tuesday\, 28 January 2025 starting at 11:00 hrs\n	 \n	 \n	The three le
 ctures will take place in ICTP's Budinich Lecture Hall.\n	 \n	 \n	All ar
 e welcome to attend. The lectures will also be livestreamed at www.ictp.it
 /livestream.\n\n//indico.ictp.it/event/10923/
LOCATION:ICTP Leonardo Building - Budinich Lecture Hall
URL://indico.ictp.it/event/10923/
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