This book lays out a number of the general issues concerning the structure of rugged fitness landscapes and examines both the history and the current status of experimental work on somatic mutation and the maturation of the immune response.
About the Santa Fe Institute -- Santa Fe Institute Editorial Board August 1989 -- Santa Fe Institute Studies in the Sciences of Complexity -- Preface: Applied Molecular Evolution on Rugged Fitness Landscapes -- Rugged Landscapes and Evolution -- Optimization on Rugged Landscapes -- A Spin-Glass Model of Evolution -- What Can Physics Do For Biology? -- Optimization of RNA Structure and Properties -- Somatic Evolution of Antibody Variable-Region Genes & Maturation of the Immune Response -- Affinity Maturation: A Retrospective View -- Maturation through Hypermutation and Selection -- Affinity Maturation on Rugged Landscapes -- Maturation of the Humoral Immune Response: A Neo-Darwinian Process? -- The NK Model of Rugged Fitness Landscapes and Its Application to Maturation of the Immune Response -- Use of Antibodies as Molecular Mimics to Probe Intermolecular Interaction Landscapes -- Affinity Maturation and Learning in Immune Networks -- Auto-Anti-ldiotype and Antigen as Selective Factors Driving B-Cell Affinity Maturation in the Immune System -- Somatic Mutation and the Antibody Repertoire: A Computational Model of Shape Space -- Applied Molecular Evolution -- Evolution of Proteins from Random Sequences: A Model for the Protein Sequence Space and an Experimental Approach -- Studies in the Evolution of Biological Activity from Random Sequences -- The Catalytic Potential of RNA -- Origin of Life Models -- Dynamics of Autocatalytic Reaction Networks
