UC Riverside               Condensed Matter Theory Seminar           February 17, 2010

Thymic Selection of T-cell Receptors

as an Extreme Value Problem

Abhishek Jha, Eric Huseby, Eugene Shakhnovich

Mehran Kardar (MIT)

Andrej Kosmrlj, Arup K. Chakraborty

Outline

I.       Introduction: T-cells, receptors, thymic selection                                       

II.      Model: Binding energy, selection, extreme values, statistical physics                                    

III.     Results: Amino-acid composition of TCRs, specificity in transgenic mice         

IV.     Analysis: Exterme Value Distribution, exact results         

V.      Summary:

  Elite controllers of HIV virus (A. Kosmrlj and A.K. Chakraborty, submitted to Nature)

Summary Outline Introduction Model Results Analysis Summary