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🛡️ T Cell Activation: How the Immune System Learns to Recognize a Threat

Explore how dendritic cells present antigens to T cells, why a costimulatory second signal is required to prevent autoimmunity, and how activated T cells multiply and differentiate into helper and killer cells.

Medicine & Biophysics3DModerate60 FPS

This simulation demonstrates how a T cell integrates TCR recognition and costimulatory signals to decide between full activation, anergy, and inaction, then models the resulting clonal expansion and differentiation into helper and cytotoxic subsets.

🔬 What It Demonstrates

🎮 How to Use

Adjust the antigen-presenting cell's danger signals and MHC-peptide match strength to see whether the T cell activates, becomes anergic, or ignores the encounter, then watch the population expand and split into CD4+ and CD8+ lineages over time.

💡 Did You Know?

A single naive T cell specific to a given pathogen can be as rare as one in a million cells in the body, yet clonal expansion can turn that lone cell into millions of effector cells within about a week.

⚙ Under the hood

immunologyt cellsadaptive immunityantigen presentationmhccostimulationclonal expansionbiology simulation

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install