News from the Chair

V.M. Kenkre Co-Organized International Immunology Working Group at Santa Fe Institute

• How do T-cells of relevance in immunology move during their search for their targets?
• Do they perform ordinary random walks, Levy walks or some composite of these standard manners of motion?
• Does animal movement on the terrain already studied in ecology have any lessons to teach in this endeavor?

Fundamental questions of this kind were discussed by an international group of scientists last week in a workshop that UNM's Consortium of the Americas for Interdisciplinary Science (CAIS) helped organize at the Santa Fe Institute (SFI) on July 29-30, 2015.

The organizers were Professor Melanie Moses from UNM's Computer Science, Professor Judy Cannon from UNM's School of Medicine and Distinguished Professor Nitant Kenkre from UNM's Physics Department.

In attendance were scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory, institutions from Spain, Netherlands, Brazil, and elsewhere in the USA. They were joined by scientists from UNM, including, in addition to those mentioned above, Distinguished Professor Stephanie Forrest and Professor Luca Giuggioli from Bristol who has been a UNM visitor in the summer to the CAIS. Student participants from UNM Physics and Astronomy were Satomi Sugaya and Matt Chase. The intense workshop lasted 2 full days in the exciting atmosphere of the SFI. See more photos on our Facebook page.

The attendees have decided to start a collaboration across the continents to delve into the issues of T-cell dynamics.