Fractal immunology and immune patterning: Potential tools for immune protection and optimization

Abstract

Fractals are self-similar geometric patterns that are inherently embedded throughout nature. Their discovery and application have produced significant benefits across a wide variety of biomedical applications. Recently, complex physiological systems (e.g., neurological, respiratory, cardiovascular) have been shown to exhibit fractal dimensions that are capable of distinguishing among physiologic function versus dysfunction and, in turn, health versus disease. Additionally, fractal data suggest that the immune system operates under similar patterned relationships, and this is in keeping with the recent findings that immune-based diseases are organized according to specific patterns. This review considers the potential benefits of using fractal analysis along with considerations of nonlinearity, scaling, and chaos as calibration tools to obtain holistic information on immune–environment interactions. The potential uses of both synthetic and artificial immune systems for improved protection of the biological immune system are also discussed. The addition of holistic measures of immune status to currently collected biomarkers of immunotoxicity has the potential to increase the effectiveness of health risk assessment. The objective of extending fractal physiology analyses to the immune system would be to promote immune optimization as a public health benefit, which would include improved: (1) immunotoxicity testing and effective health risk reduction and (2) measures of effective immune management for children, adults, and aged individuals.

Keywords::

• Fractals
• immune system
• health risks
• nonlinearity
• chaos
• immunotoxicity
• synthetic immune system
• artificial immune system
• risk assessment
• public health

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Janice Dietert and Grant Dietert for their editorial assistance. During the preparation of this manuscript, Dr. Benoit B Mandelbrot passed away. It is with great honor that this publication is dedicated to Dr. Mandelbrot.

Declarations of interest

Rodney R. Dietert is employed by Cornell University. He also serves on advisory panels for the U.S. EPA, the Institute of Medicine, and the World Health Organization and consults for the US EPA on the Integrated Science Assessment for Pb. The author reports no declarations of interest regarding this manuscript. The author declares no conflict of interest.