Microsoft, Adaptive Biotechnologies will use AI to decode the immune system

Microsoft and Seattle-based Adaptive Biotechnologies have announced a new partnership which aims to use artificial intelligence in order to decode the immune system and thus better understand, prevent, and treat disease. In essence, the body's immune response is controlled mostly by two types of cells: B-cells (which originate in the bone marrow) and T-cells (which mature in and derive their name from an organ called the thymus). On the surface, each of these has a large number of proteins that act as receptors and are dubbed either BCRs (B-cell receptors) or TCRs (T-cell receptors). This is important to note due to the fact that BCRs are more thoroughly understood than TCRs, with the sequencing of the latter still in its early stages. T-cells and by extension TCRs play quite a big role in the proper function of your acquired immune response, in particular working with a series of proteins which form the major histocompatibility complex (MHC).