Section: New Results

Modelling of the CD8 T cell Immune Response

The CD8 immune response is a specific immune response triggered by the organism when the innate response is unable to fight a pathogen. We proposed a new model of the CD8 T cell immune response based on the description of feedback controls exerted by the cytotoxic CD8 T cell population on the pathogen and the population itself. This model, a system of ordinary and age-structured partial differential equations, allows to describe a classical response, characterized by a cellular expansion following the pathogen-mediated activation, then a contraction phase and the generation of memory CD8 T cells. Moreover, we showed the global asymptotic stability of this system corresponding to the elimination of the virus. This situation is expected and describes for instance what is observed with the flu virus. We are now confronting the model to experimental data being generated by Jacqueline Marvel's team in Lyon (immunology team). The analysis of the model and the first results have been published in Journal of Biological Systems