Agent-Based Modeling of Host-Pathogen Systems: The Successes and Challenges

TL;DR

This paper reviews agent-based models in immunology, highlighting their successes in understanding host-pathogen interactions and discussing current limitations and challenges for future research.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of agent-based modeling applications in host-pathogen systems and emphasizes the need for reproducibility and validation.

Findings

Agent-based models have advanced understanding of immune responses.

Current models face challenges in reproducibility and validation.

The paper encourages efforts to improve model reliability.

Abstract

Agent-based models have been employed to describe numerous processes in immunology. Simulations based on these types of models have been used to enhance our understanding of immunology and disease pathology. We review various agent-based models relevant to host-pathogen systems and discuss their contributions to our understanding of biological processes. We then point out some limitations and challenges of agent-based models and encourage efforts towards reproducibility and model validation.