Abstract
Agent-based models have been employed to describe numerous processes in immunology. Simulations based on these types of models have been used to enhance our understanding of immunology and disease pathology. We review various agent-based models relevant to host–pathogen systems and discuss their contributions to our understanding of biological processes. We then point out some limitations and challenges of agent-based models and encourage efforts towards reproducibility and model validation.
Highlights
The ideas gleaned from studying immunology and host–pathogen systems may be relevant to human health and to a wide array of other systems
Computational advances are making possible the use of agent-based models (ABMs) to describe whole systems arising in the human immune system, which has been the focus of this article, and in financial markets [37,47,99,101], the spread of epidemics [29,100], cancer dynamics [1,53,65,108], and the threat of bio-warfare [20] to name just a few
We have presented a limited survey of ABMs in the context of host–pathogen dynamics
Summary
The ideas gleaned from studying immunology and host–pathogen systems may be relevant to human health and to a wide array of other systems. One option to address this limitation is to use partial differential equations (PDEs), which capture changes in both time and space, but, in general, as these equations get more complicated, and more computationally challenging, the advantages to using PDE models wane For both ODE and PDE models, one must consider that solutions to these equations only provide an average or mean field description of the system behavior with little or no information about the possible deviations from this aggregated behavior. ABMs are stochastic models used to describe populations of interacting agents, such as insects and people, using simple rules that dictate their behaviors These models were originally introduced by John von Neumann and Stanislaw Ulam under the name of ‘‘cellular spaces” as a possible idealization of biological systems. We review a variety of agent-based modeling approaches and their contributions to our understanding of host–pathogen interactions and disease dynamics
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
