Memory in the time of COVID

This dissertation examines six characteristics of memory in accordance with the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 is a major event that has changed how society operates. With the conjunction of digital archives, memory performances have changed. In light of a major world pandemic and the shift to the digital a reassessment of memory is needed. 1) With many museums physically closed, the context of the pandemic with the affordances of technology allowed for memory to symbolically be performed through the digital archives. The future of memory studies must contend with digital archives as memory performances. 2) Computer assisted analysis may help with decoding a broad set, but the human aspect cannot be overlooked. Examining the digital archived COVID-19 memory showcases the importance of human analysis when understanding trauma and trauma recovery. 3) The rapid speed of memory making today and the reduced distance between event and recollection requires memory studies to evaluate the role of time and distance. The expedited memory making creates more references for others to use and abuse increasing the importance of rhetoric to understand all the available means of persuasion. 4) While the digital opens up room for multiple voices, it also allows individuals to be selective. Future memory studies must be aware of how memory performances are used to create echo chambers in order to attract likeminded newcomers and establish a group identity. 5) From the partisan and contested voices, COVID-19 and the digital have created new ways to forget the other. Memory studies must take on the mantle of exposing the silencing of inequalities. 6) Evaluating the characteristics of collective memory after COVID-19 and the increase of digital archives demonstrates the importance of rhetoric. With the trouble of truth and the disconnectedness between institutions and the people, rhetoric becomes integral in solving the issues of society

Paradoxical effects of obesity on T cell function during tumor progression and PD-1 checkpoint blockade.

The recent successes of immunotherapy have shifted the paradigm in cancer treatment, but because only a percentage of patients are responsive to immunotherapy, it is imperative to identify factors impacting outcome. Obesity is reaching pandemic proportions and is a major risk factor for certain malignancies, but the impact of obesity on immune responses, in general and in cancer immunotherapy, is poorly understood. Here, we demonstrate, across multiple species and tumor models, that obesity results in increased immune aging, tumor progression and PD-1-mediated T cell dysfunction which is driven, at least in part, by leptin. However, obesity is also associated with increased efficacy of PD-1/PD-L1 blockade in both tumor-bearing mice and clinical cancer patients. These findings advance our understanding of obesity-induced immune dysfunction and its consequences in cancer and highlight obesity as a biomarker for some cancer immunotherapies. These data indicate a paradoxical impact of obesity on cancer. There is heightened immune dysfunction and tumor progression but also greater anti-tumor efficacy and survival after checkpoint blockade which directly targets some of the pathways activated in obesity