Aleksandra Walczak (ENS Paris), Diversity and prediction of immune receptor repertoires

The recognition of pathogens relies on the diversity of immune receptor proteins. Recent experiments that sequence entire immune cell repertoires provide a new opportunity for quantitative insight into naturally occurring diversity and how it is generated. I will show how applying statistical inference to these recent experiments that sequence entire B and T-cell repertoires we can quantify the origins of diversity in these sequences and characterize selection acting on the somatic evolutionary process that leads to the observed receptor diversity.  I will discuss these results from the theoretical perspective of optimal repertoires.