From Computer Tyme Support Wiki

Introduction

We all know what the function of the immune system is. The immune system is there to protect the stuff that we are made out of and to get rid of the stuff that will cause us harm. But how does it work? How does it know who is the good guys and who is the bad guys? How does it tell friend from foe?

There are thousands of papers written about the immune system. They talk about the different cells involved. They talk about proteins, peptides, antigens, antibodies, vaccines, bone marrow, self vs. non self, signaling pathways, apoptosis, and hundreds of other concepts that will make your head spin. This paper is different. This paper talks about the immune system in the context of function and process rather than focusing on the mechanisms of how it works. In this article I compare the immune system to an email spam filtering system which functions as an engineered immune system for email. The goal here is to look at the big picture and work back to the details.