Survey of Models for Tumor-Immune System Dynamics (1997)

Mathematical Modeling and Immunology An enormous amount of human effort and economic resources has been directed in this century to the fight against cancer. The purpose, of course, has been to find strategies to overcome this hard, challenging and seemingly endless struggle. We can readily imagine that even greater efforts will be required in the next century. The hope is that ultimately humanity will be successful; success will have been achieved when it is possible to activate and control the immune system in its competition against neoplastic cells. Dealing with the above-mentioned problem requires the fullest pos- sible cooperation among scientists working in different fields: biology, im- munology, medicine, physics and, we believe, mathematics. Certainly, bi- ologists and immunologists will make the greatest contribution to the re- search. However, it is now increasingly recognized that mathematics and computer science may well able to make major contributions to such prob- lems. We cannot expect mathematicians alone to solve fundamental prob- lems in immunology and (in particular) cancer research, but valuable sup- port, however modest, can be provided by mathematicians to the research aspirations of biologists and immunologists working in this field.