Simons Center for Quantitative Biology, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, NY, 11724, USA.
Gigascience. 2012 Jul 12;1(1):4. doi: 10.1186/2047-217X-1-4.
Driven by million-fold improvements in biotechnology, biology is increasingly shifting towards high-resolution, quantitative approaches to study the molecular dynamics of entire populations. One exciting application enabled by this new era of biology is the "digital immune system". It would work in much the same way as an adaptive, biological immune system: by observing the microbial landscape, detecting potential threats, and neutralizing them before they spread beyond control. With the potential to have an enormous impact on public health, it is time to integrate the necessary biotechnology, computational, and organizational systems to seed the development of a global, sequencing-based pathogen surveillance system.
在生物技术的百万倍改进的推动下，生物学正越来越多地转向高分辨率、定量的方法来研究整个种群的分子动力学。生物学的这个新时代带来的一个令人兴奋的应用是“数字免疫系统”。它的工作方式与适应性的生物免疫系统非常相似：通过观察微生物景观，检测潜在威胁，并在它们失控传播之前将其中和。由于它有可能对公共卫生产生巨大影响，现在是时候整合必要的生物技术、计算和组织系统，为开发一个基于测序的全球病原体监测系统奠定基础了。
