Poster Abstracts

ABSTRACTS OF POSTERS

Carlo Avignolo  (UNITRE – Università delle Tre Età – Loano, ITALY.)

“Food and the Environment.”  

The study of food from the point of view of environmental sciences draws attention to the stages of production, processing, distribution and disposal, usually neglected, because they are not lived by the consumer. Each step poses questions to the various stakeholders in the food supply chain about ethical principles to be taken as guidelines and elaborate moral issues that arise in the production, processing, distribution, consumption and disposal of food.

Bearing in mind that the instrumental value of food is not its economic value, but its use value to nourish life on Earth, here some practical questions are presented that arise when considering future perspectives.
1. Are local food systems endowed with the features to be regarded as primary steps in order to achieve sustainability in the global food supply chain?

Length and number of nodes in the food chains require different perspectives to be considered, involving ecological, sanitary and socio-ethical spheres.

2. Is smart farming the key to developing sustainable agriculture? The transition requires the coordination of different and possibly conflincting factors / organizations, raising ethical and legal issues.
3. Do changes of energy source entail a switch of our attitude towards nature and its resources? The clean energy transition appears to be significantly mineral intensive.
4. What needs to change in our daily life? Having in mind the target of the common good (Fratelli Tutti, Francis) our behavior as citizens might be focused on two facets: we are both consumers and investors. 

Dennis J. Baumgardner, MD (University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Professor Emeritus, Department of Family Medicine and Community Health.)

“Does Environmental Ammonia Tolerance Portend an Additional Virulence Factor for Certain Human Fungal Pathogens?”

There are many sources of ammonia in the microenvironments of potentially pathogenic fungi. While often ephemeral, ammonia may become trapped or persist in such environments. There is increasing recognition of the importance of fungal ammonia tolerance and production as virulence factors in the pathogenesis of opportunistic fungi in humans. Host tissue alkalinization through ammonia release and carbon deprivation promote infection by some fungi. We have previously demonstrated significant in-vitro ammonia tolerance (≥ 13.2 mM NH 3 at 20⁰ and 37⁰C (compared to inhibition of mammalian cells and many fungi at levels above 1 mM NH 3 ) of the dimorphic endemic fungus genus, Blastomyces, utilizing an ammonium sulfate, basic salts, low glucose agar incubated in gas impermeable bags. We suggested that such tolerance imparted a selective advantage to this otherwise poorly competitive fungus. We subsequently isolated and demonstrated similar ammonia tolerance of strains of the ubiquitous environmental fungi Scedosporium apiospermum, although growth was poor at 37⁰. We recently reported the novel isolation and identification, by morphology, matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI–TOF) and internal transcribed spacer ribosomal RNA gene sequencing, of Exophiala dermatitidis from a human mouth, a microenvironment where ammonia generation has been reported. For comparison with a known ammonia tolerant genus, a probable Rhodotorula mucilaginosa strain (identified by morphology and MALDI-TOF) was isolated from bark of a live maple tree. The Exophiala and Rhodotorula were isolated on Staib (birdseed) agar containing chloramphenicol at 35-37°C. Both strains tested positive on urease agar and had similar but more modest ammonia tolerance (growth at 4.2 mM NH 3 ) at 20⁰ and 37°C. Further study, including in carbon-deprived environments, is needed to determine how wide-spread ammonia tolerance is among micro-fungi, and to determine if ammonia tolerance acquired in natural and built environments enhances virulence of fungi potentially pathogenic for humans.

Anna M. Christianson  (Bellarmine University, Asst. Professor.)

“Waste Not: A Teaching Lab Experiment on Chemical Waste Recycling.”

Chemical waste disposal is a black box for undergraduate chemistry students—in most teaching labs, students are instructed to collect waste in designated containers and rarely give it another thought.  We have designed a guided-inquiry laboratory experiment for our Instrumental Chemical Analysis course, in which students carry out a procedure to reclaim silver metal from silver chloride waste produced in one of their previous experiments. The two-step reduction method replaces toxic silver ions first with copper, then with iron, resulting in a final waste mixture that is environmentally benign. As they go, the students undertake analyses of their working solutions to measure the levels of residual metal ions and confirm the safety of the resulting waste for sewer disposal. Additionally, we have incorporated a reflection assignment to get students thinking about their learning and the sustainability impacts of chemical waste disposal. This experiment gives students an experience in “real-world” analytical work, enhances their thinking about experimental design and chemical sustainability, and allows them to make a small but concrete contribution toward sustainability in our Department’s handling of chemical waste. By recycling silver from their own lab waste, students are encouraged to reflect on how they personally can practice sustainability in their future scientific careers.

Raymond J. Juzaitis (Texas A&M, Retired Department Head of Nuclear Engineering.)

“Sustainability, the Church, and Nuclear Weapons.”

Two existential threats face us in the early 21 st century: the effects of global climate change in the wake of anthropogenic carbon emissions, as well as the annihilation of civilization resulting from a hostile exchange of nuclear weapons. Although Pope Francis has issued a deeply-researched and contextualized landmark encyclical Laudato Si addressing moral responsibilities toward “our common home”, his pronouncements to-date on nuclear weapons have not been as deeply considered, yet deviate significantly from the previous body of Church teaching. In the midst of the Cold War, the Catholic Church began a public dialogue on the morality of nuclear weapons. In the early 1980’s, prior to the signing of the INF Treaty, a “Nuclear Freeze” movement was galvanizing pacifist sentiment that also prompted a pastoral letter on war and peace by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (“The Challenge of Peace: God’s Promise and Our Response”) published in May of 1983. The Cold War effectively ended in 1991, and the global nuclear security environment has changed in significant ways. Today, the world is grappling with nuclear proliferation and we are on the precipice of a multipolar nuclear world, very different than the one confronting us in the 1980s. The Russo-Ukrainian war has starkly reminded us of the risks of potential use of nuclear weapons. Nevertheless, the demise of nuclear arms control and absence of further negotiated reductions in nuclear arms, even while nuclear weapon modernization efforts continue apace, threatens a return to a new arms race in the 21st century. The Church has also evolved its traditional teachings on Just War and nuclear weaponry: from a strictly conditional moral acceptance of nuclear deterrence (JP II) in the 1980s to public pronouncements by Pope Francis questioning the morality of even the possession of nuclear weapons. This talk will briefly outline the changes in nuclear weapons strategies and postures from the early 1980’s to the present, as well as ummarize the changes in Church teaching on this issue. What spiritual motivation can sustain us as Catholic scientists and engineers in advancing the cause of nuclear security and peace through the “brokenness” of the human condition?

John W. Keck

“A Parable for Leibowitz: How the West Was Lost and What to Do about It.”

How does the classic science fiction novel A Canticle for Leibowitz illuminate the current cultural and social crisis of the developed world, especially the West? What does this crisis have to do with the way intellectual disciplines, especially the sciences, are structured? Is there any way to rectify the problem?

Jonathan Lunine   (Cornell University, Prof. of Astrophysics.  PhD in Planetary Science from Caltech.)

“What have we learned about climate change from planetary exploration.”

While the focus of climate change investigations is correctly on the Earth itself, robotic exploration of the other planets of our solar system has provided important perspectives. The differing physical and chemical conditions on other objects in our solar system test the limits of the physics inherent in numerical models intended to predict the outcome of human-induced changes in greenhouse gas radiative forcing. The first lesson taken from solar system exploration came from Venus. Early greenhouse models of the 1960’s to explain the high surface temperatures were oversimplified, but measurements of solar flux, temperature, and composition vs altitude by Pioneer Venus led to much improved models that demonstrated the reality of the effects of greenhouse gases on planetary climate. Venus also was a planetary testbed for the destruction of ozone by chlorine compounds in the stratosphere. Saturn’s moon Titan, with a dense atmosphere whose strong radiative forcing is driven by methane opacity and a surface energy balance at least partially driven by latent heat, has provided another interesting analog and terrestrial General Circulation Models have been modified to simulate Titan climate on seasonal and longer timescales. Most recently detailed investigation of lightning and rainstorms on Jupiter by the Juno mission test our understanding of moist convective processes. While such models do not directly provide policy guidance on human activities that affect the climate of our home world, they provide an important reminder that the underlying physics driving climate change is universal and applies everywhere in the cosmos. To the extent that it increases public interest and trust in the science behind global climate change, robotic planetary exploration may well be a moral imperative.

Timothy W. Marin  (Benedictine University, Prof. of Chemistry.)

“The Benedictine Take on Environmental Stewardship.”

The Benedictine charism is rooted in core values of humility, stability, and hospitality, making it entirely applicable and especially well-suited to model environmental stewardship and sustainability. The simplistic Benedictine lifestyle eschews many of the human excesses that damage our natural environment and potentially cause harm to all God’s creatures living within it. Humility keeps one’s mindset close to the Earth and our interconnectedness with it. Commitment to stability and hospitality ties us to a particular place for which we are called to care, stewarding that place so that it remains welcoming for future generations. With this in mind, Benedictine educational institutions seek to foster awareness that we are part of a larger ecology given by God for the sake of all organisms. We strive for the sustainable use of resources for just distribution to all for the well being of society and Earth itself.

Wilderson Medina (Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University,  graduate student.)

“Citizen science data show region-wide retreats from lower elevations of range-restricted birds across the Northern Andes.”

Local studies find upslope shifts in bird distributions in response to warming temperatures. Unanswered is whether these upward shifts occur regionally across a large number of species. We consider a nearly 2000 km length of the Northern Andes, where temperature and extreme weather events have increased during the past decades. Range-restricted bird species are particularly vulnerable to such events and occur in exceptional numbers in this region. Our analysis focuses on nearly 200 such species and uses abundant crowd-sourced data from eBird and GBIF that document their distributions. We ask whether species are now at higher elevations than in the past. Species’ retreats from lower elevations are ubiquitous and involve a 23 to 40% decline in prevalence at the lowest elevations. We did not find consistent increases at higher elevations. These retreats occur across a broad spectrum of species, from predominantly lowland ones to predominantly highland ones.

Berta Moritz   (Gouya Insights, Pharmacovigilance Officer.)

“Female Catholic Scientists through the centuries."

The women to be presented here come from a variety of scientific disciplines and lead lives as diverse as life itself can be, but they all had two characteristics in common: (1) they have had an impact on the science and/or scientific education at their time and (2) their lives were informed, transformed, and inspired by their Catholic faith. We can trace the first Catholic female scientists back to the monasteries of the middles ages and to Italian scientists in the 18th centuries whose career was encouraged and fostered by the Catholic Church in a time when this was not the case elsewhere. Starting in the 19 th century, women were opening carrier paths in many disciplines. This presentation will focus on female Catholic scientists that may serve as role models that can guide us to integrate Science and our Catholic faith in our own lives to become one of the “saints next doors”, as Pope Francis encouraged us recently.  1. Marie-Anne Lavoisier (1758 – 1836), France, chemist, working with her husband.  2. Agnes Mary Clerke (1842 – 1907), Ireland, astronomer. 3. Therese von Bayern (1850-1926), German, botany, zoology, and anthropology. 4. Marcella O’Grady Boveri (1863-1950), USA, biologist, working with her husband she met in the lab. 5. Emily Fortey (1866 – 1946), England, chemist, convert to Catholicism. 6. Eva von Bahr-Bergius (1874 – 1962), Sweden, physicist, convert to Catholicism. 7. Euphemia Lofton Haynes (1890 –1980), USA, educator, African American woman to receive a doctoral degree in mathematics. 8. Dorothy Annie Elizabeth Garrod (1892 –1968), England, archeologist, , convert to Catholicism. 9. Sr. Hilary Ross (1894 – 1982), USA, pharmacist, worked on leprosy. 10. Gerty Cori (1896 – 1957), Austria, biochemist, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1947 together with her husband. 11. Máirín de Valera (1912-1984), Ireland, botanist and phycologist, 12. Piedad de la Cierva (1913 – 2007), Spain, chemist (radioactivity; optics)

Christopher J. Payne  (Franciscan University of Steubenville, Asst. Prof. of Biology.)

“Creation Care: How individual sustainability supports being holistically pro-life in the face of long-term ecological change.”

Life has been sustained on earth for an estimated 3.5 billion years despite drastic changes to biodiversity driven by ongoing global dynamics -- including recent human impacts. Human-mediated sustainability efforts use available data to plan for this dynamicity when confronted with conserving biodiversity in the midst of maintaining human well-being. However, inconsistent underlying ethics often inform how data is utilized to make conservation decisions. Adopting a Catholic Creation Care ethic enables greater consistency in informing conservation decisions in the face of ongoing ecological change and – more importantly -- informs how individuals may embrace a more holistically pro-life lifestyle. This presentation explores the theology of a Creation Care ethic informed by Scriptural, Magisterial, and social teachings of the Catholic Church. Humankind’s vocational call to environmental stewardship in Genesis is explained through a holistic call to love all of Creation as illustrated in Pope Francis’s encyclical, Laudato Sí.  Christ’s own example enables Christians to understand this vocational call to love Creation through acts of loving service. Humankind’s call to practice such loving relationship with all of Creation enables greater relationship with God, and so each person must strive to live out this loving service in all that they do.

Matthew Ramage  (Benedictine College, Prof. of Theology. SCS Scholar Associate)

“Inhabiting God’s Garden: Joseph Ratzinger’s Covenantal Theology of the Environment.” 

While Pope Francis’s landmark encyclical Laudato Si’ has garnered widespread attention among Catholics concerned with care for creation, the teachings of his predecessors in this domain are far less known yet remain equally crucial for the development of a robustly Catholic environmentalism. In view of remedying this lacuna, this paper will present a synthesis of Pope Benedict XVI’s approach to care for the created world and demonstrate its relevance for addressing pressing issues facing our world today. 

In this first part of this lecture, the environmental teachings of our recent popes will be surveyed and compared, over the course of which it will become evident that many of the concepts detailed by Pope Francis have antecedents in the work of his predecessors. Crucial among these is the insistence that a properly integral ecology must proceed with its work of care for the natural world in tandem with an emphasis on the unique dignity of the human person within creation (human ecology). 

Upon completing the above survey, the paper will then dive deeply into the meaning and implications of the emeritus pontiff’s contention that God’s covenant with man also encompasses the entire created order. One teaching of Benedict in this domain that especially merits further reception is his original framing of environmental concern in terms of a “covenant between human beings and the environment, which should mirror the creative love of God, from whom we come and toward whom we are journeying.” It will be argued that this perspective on the environment, which arises from faith in creation and is expressed in covenantal terms, represents a decisive contribution that the Catholic Church can make towards developing a balanced ecology that is capable of meeting the challenge of care for both the created world and the most vulnerable humans within it. 

Timothy D. Raub  (Geosciences Heritage Institute and formerly Asst. Prof of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Univ. of St. Andrews. PhD in Geology and Geophysics from Yale University.) 

“Evidence for Early Life on Earth and Mars.”

An overarching question governs the discrimination between pseudofossil artifacts and real, biological relicts from the earliest Eons of Earth and Mars: how does Sticky Stuff form and behave? More than four billion years ago, a strong Martian magnetic field protected a heavy atmosphere in which giant raindrops fed rivers, lakes, and oceans. Jarosite, an iron sulfate mineral precipitate in aqueous Martian sediments, indicates extreme acidity and probably brininess. Both conditions tend to suppress life. Yet recent images of ancient Martian sand ripples suggest a sticky, cohesive substance protecting ripple crests from erosion beneath ensuing event beds. On Earth, sedimentologists typically consider this to be evidence of past life, specifically of surficial coating with extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) produced by since-decayed microbial mats or biofilms. Similarly, raindrop casts, if discovered on Mars, will demand an answer to a question which is currently unanswered in the terrestrial literature: is it possible to preserve fossil raindrop craters in sand against the forces of erosion and compaction in any way except by cohesion with EPS? Whereas the early Martian atmosphere was thick and highly oxidizing, the surface of Archean Earth was methane-rich and irradiated with UV, conditions that can rain out abiotic hydrocarbon sludge. And indeed, Earth’s oldest intertidal deposits indicate extremely rapid coating with sticky carbon films, preserving sand ripple forms. Arguments for biofilm versus methane haze origin in these beds must rely on secondary lines of evidence. The most powerful of these lines of evidence may be the deportment of iron and manganese minerals in such deposits. It turns out that Earth’s oldest well-preserved sedimentary rocks show remarkable iron enrichments in marine silica gel, 3.6 billion years ago. This suggests that Life on Earth is as old as our rock record is capable of interrogation.

Joseph Robben  (Catholic University of America, undergraduate.)

“Deep Learning to Predict Chitosan Membrane Electrodeposition.”

Chitosan is a versatile aminopolysaccharide biomaterial with pH-dependent solubility and many biomedical applications. Notably, chitosan links the electronic and biological worlds by depositing on the active surface of a cathode, in a way that is controllable, addressable, and programmable. Further, electrodeposited chitosan films display optical birefringence, indicating a level of intra- and/or inter-molecular order. To better understand factors influencing chitosan film molecular organization, this research project uses deep learning to predict birefringence images acquired with a microscope during the time-course of electrodeposition. Specifically, co-registered brightfield and birefringence images were collected and used to train a conditional generative adversarial network (cGAN). In a first test, the trained network predicted birefringence images of the chitosan membrane with high similarity to the true images. However, when the current density was doubled or salt added during electrodeposition, the trained network predicted much higher birefringence signal than actual. The failed predictions thus contain quantitative information pertaining to factors that influence optical anisotropy of chitosan films, useful to a mechanistic interpretation of chitosan molecular organization during electrodeposition. Scientists and engineers may use this approach to better understand the stimuli-response behavior across the electrode-chitosan interface, which has many potential applications to development of sensitive and rapid biosensors, biological computers, biomanufacturing, and physiologically responsive cell-based therapeutic devices.

Matthew Rose  (Chairperson of the Religion department at Bishop Denis J. O'Connell High School in Arlington, VA.  ThD candidate. Non-SCS member)

“Biological Extinction and Conservation in light of Divine Providence.”

Since the initial identification of biological extinction in the seventeenth century, theologians have wrestled with the question of God’s Providence and biological extinction. As with various theories of biological and geographical evolution, contemporary theologians present extinction as part of God’s continual crafting of Creation, even identifying past mass extinctions as the way God prepared a world for the pinnacle of Creation: the human person. Thus, one might see, for example, the K-Pg extinction event of 66 million years ago as an act of Providence to pave the way for our own species. This view, while fitting into the grander biological narrative of mass extinction events, takes a strange turn in light of Holocene or Anthropocene extinctions. Several questions arise: If Christians accept past mass extinctions as part of God’s Providence, can we do the same with current Anthropocene extinctions? To what extent does God will, or even direct, the extinction of species at the hands of humans? In light of this, should Christians work to conserve endangered species, or is that in some way standing against the will of God and His plan for future biological evolution? This talk reflects on this tension, both acknowledging the role Providence plays in biological processes and simultaneously holding believers to a standard of responsibility to preserve the other members of “our common home.”

Phil Sakimoto  (University of Notre Dame, Director of Program for Academic Excellence.)

“Fighting for the Future of Our Planet: The Minor in Sustainability at the University of Notre Dame.”

The Minor in Sustainability at the University of Notre Dame is a highly-interdisciplinary program rooted in the tenets of Laudato Si’ and aimed at training future professionals who will use their expertise in a wide variety of fields to address the most pressing issues of climate change and sustainability facing us today. We currently have more than 100 students from 33 different majors, spread across 5 different colleges and schools at Notre Dame. Our philosophy is that students should have specific disciplinary expertise through their major, and, through our minor, learn how to turn that expertise towards addressing pressing issues in sustainability and, especially, climate change. Their studies range from the exceedingly practical, such as climate change and renewable energy, to the exceedingly personal, such as theology and human behavior. They are taught the tools of professional success, including how to develop proposals and work in cross-disciplinary teams, and they are encouraged to reflect on their own personal relationship to caring for creation. Environmentalist John Ehrenfeld has defined sustainability as “the possibility that humans and other life will flourish on the Earth forever.” Our graduates are dedicated to making that possibility a reality.

Sam Shephard  (Inland Fisheries Ireland, Senior Research Officer.)

“Hunting, Fishing, and Effective Environmental Stewardship.”

Recreational fishing and hunting organizations have a long record as leading stewards of fish and wildlife, financing and lobbying for conservation. Today, there is a strong tendency in many western societies towards ethical and practical rejection of extractive resource use and a tendency for other environmental organizations to become more accepted conservation interest groups. Recreational hunting and fishing can have a range of negative environmental impacts, but these problems are not inevitable and can be largely avoided by improved governance and management. In contrast, when analysed against a novel stewardship framework based on dimensions of care, knowledge and agency, we find that banning extractive resource use will probably harm long-term conservation. This is because fishing and hunting facilitate deep indidual and communal connections to fish and wildlife, shaping a caring sense of place and identity that elicit strong self-interested pro-environmental behaviour. Profound feelings of care and responsibility for nature ultimately bridge the value-action gap through the development of assessment, management and evaluative competencies and associated agency, especially when user organizations directly manage their local ecosystems as is the case in many governance systems. When examined via virtue and utilitarian ethics, no other group in civil society seems to have the same potential for effective long-term environmental stewardship as identified for extractive users of fish and wildlife. We conclude that conservation may be better served by strategic re-orientation towards improved governance and management of hunters and anglers than by introducing constraints or even widespread bans that could undermine strong incentives for stewardship.

Jeffrey Strock   (Univ. of Minnesota, Prof. of Soil, Water, and Climate.)

“Integrated Landscape Management for Agricultural Production and Water Quality.”

Nutrient losses from agriculture are of great concern regionally and nationally due to eutrophication in surface waters. In order to improve productivity, extensive agricultural areas in the Midwest require drainage systems consisting of subsurface drainage (tile) systems and ditches. These drainage systems are known to transport particulate and dissolved phosphorus, nitrate-nitrogen, and sediment to streams and lakes. To solve complex environmental problems and to meet the 45% nitrogen and phosphorus load reduction goals established for the Mississippi River/Gulf of Mexico by 2040 it will be necessary to apply a multidimensional approach that incorporates management and conservation of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. The objective of this research was to conduct sub-watershed scale experiments to quantify the impacts of integrated in-field, edge-of-field, and in-stream water management practices on water quantity and quality. This research took place within a sub-watershed of the Cottonwood River Major Watershed at the University of Minnesota, Southwest Research and Outreach Center near Lamberton, MN.  Our site included a paired drainage ditch system, six constructed wetlands, nine modular bioreactors and cover crop research. The practices described above were monitored individually as well as collectively for their impact on the hydrology and water quality from the sub-watershed. Information from this project will inform farmers and agencies on the impacts of multiple, integrated best practices in order to meet nutrient load reduction goals. As an example of the potential for reaching nutrient reduction goals, ditch management resulted in nitrate-nitrogen and dissolved reactive phosphorus load reductions of 62% and 63%, respectively. Annual and seasonal variability in precipitation along with frequency, intensity and duration of precipitation impacted water and nutrient transport and treatment among the drainage water management practices. This presentation will include water quantity and quality results for the time period spanning 2016 through 2021.

Alex Webber (University of Florida at Gainesville, graduate student.)

“ACESO: A 3D Agent-Based Simulation of the Interaction between Immune and Tumor Cells.”

Immunotherapy consists of assisting or augmenting the immune system to prevent or treat diseases and has shown great promise in improving upon the conventional methods of treating cancer, namely radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and surgery [2]. However, conducting preclinical studies in this field can take months to years and often require costly equipment and training to execute. Researchers have used in-silico methods to reduce the time to conduct these studies, computationally exploring many different experimental configurations in a fraction of the time needed in a wet lab [1]. A common method used to describe the interaction of the immune system with tumor cells is through ordinary and partial differential equations of the evolution in the populations, but these top-down approaches often cannot capture the necessary detail required to understand the dynamics that operate at the cellular level [3]. Appropriately, studies that approach these systems from the bottom-up, particularly agent-based simulations, have shown success in capturing the dynamics of cell-to-cell interactions [4]. The intersection between immunotherapy and agent-based simulations has seen increased traffic in recent years, notably in the realm of the tumor-immune microenvironment [4]. Recent advances in computational power have contributed to the growing scale and fidelity of simulations [5]. The bottom-up nature of agent-based simulations are especially suited to capture this fidelity, given their ability to represent complex systems of cell-to-cell interactions, and therefore have greatly benefited from the rising tide of processing capabilities. Here, we have written simulation software seeking to represent the interactions between immune cells and tumor cells. Specifically, the Adaptive Cell Evolution Simulator for Oncology (ACESO) is an agent-based, three-dimensional, off-lattice simulation of the tumor-immune microenvironment, the agents being immune cells and tumor cells.