Cancer treatments that use the body’s immune system, known as immunotherapies, to kill cancer cells are less harmful to people with cancer than traditional chemotherapies.

Research by Sylvia Adams, MD, professor in the Department of Medicine at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and director of the Breast Cancer Center at NYU Langone Health’s Perlmutter Cancer Center, is laying the groundwork for new immune-based treatments that can inhibit the growth of breast and ovarian cancer cells and stop their spread to other parts of the body (metastasis).

“The immunotherapy is much less toxic than chemotherapy,” Dr. Adams tells Nautilus: Biology and Beyond. “It doesn’t change the patient’s quality of life.”

Read more from Nautilus: Biology and Beyond.