Bestselling author of The Good Nurse, Charles Graeber details the discovery of cancer’s secret weakness and how a new generation of scientists finally cracked the code on how the human immune system can fight-and beat-the disease.

One hundred years ago, physicians marveled at what appeared to be patients with bacterial infections spontaneously being cured of deadly tumors. What was a miraculous mystery then is now hard scientific fact: immunotherapy is the cutting edge of cancer treatment, and a crucial breakthrough in the race to find the ultimate cure.

In The Breakthrough, journalist Charles Graeber expertly traces the fascinating history of immuno-oncology and guides readers through the revolutionary scientific research bringing immunotherapy into the twenty-first century. As advances in the fields of cancer research and the human immune system continue to fuel a therapeutic arms race among biotech and pharmaceutical research centers around the world, the next step-harnessing the wealth of new information into modern and more effective patient therapies-is already well underway.

The Breakthrough is the first book to address the game-changing science of cancer treatment through immunotherapy. It is the incredible true story of the race to find a cure, a dispatch from the life-changing world of oncological science, and a brave new chapter in our relationship with cancer.