From Natural to Artificial Immune Systems

Jon Timmis

What is an artificial immune system? How do we take the step from the natural to the artificial world and is this a valid step to take? These are commonly asked questions when one is confronted with this term in the literature. This talk will attempt to address these issues, and raise many more! I will explore some basic aspects of immunology and discuss how these immunological concepts can be of inspiration to computer scientists who are trying to develop 'intelligent' computational systems. There are many areas that have benefited from this undertaking, ranging from computer security, virus detection, machine learning and fault tolerance; all of these will be discussed in this talk. This will be coupled with an overview of some of the work being undertaken currently within the Computing Laboratory at the University of Kent.