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Created by: Erika Tsingos
Issue 315: In an agent-based simulation of thymus homeostasis, we track entry of early T cell progenitors, their clonal expansion, and eventual exit from the organ. In each simulation, we also include a single T cell progenitor that bears a mutation. The picture visualizes the coming and going of cells in a simulation, where each color shade indicates a clonal lineage. The black color indicates the mutated clone, which has a slightly shorter cell cycle time but otherwise behaves normally. The height of each colored patch indicates the number of cells in that clone, the length indicates simulation time. For this artistic rendition, the color scheme was chosen to be evocative of a hilly landscape reflected in a still lake.