Could Dogs Help Find New Treatments for Osteosarcoma?

The Defying Osteosarcoma TeamLab is studying osteosarcoma in dogs and people with the goal of uncovering breakthrough treatments for this deadly disease.

Osteosarcoma is a rare, aggressive cancer that affects everyone differently. That makes it a challenging disease to research, and treatments have not changed in over four decades. The disease most often strikes children and adolescents, and the standard approach of MAP chemotherapy and surgery fails a third of the time. When the cancer spreads to the lungs, survival rates are poor.

But there’s an unexpected ally in the search for better treatments: dogs.

Osteosarcoma occurs in over 10,000 to 20,000 dogs each year, compared to roughly 1,000 humans. Decades of research have revealed striking similarities in how the disease appears in both species.

This is the premise behind including dogs with osteosarcoma in Break Through Cancer’s Defying Osteosarcoma TeamLab’s efforts to conduct clinical trials of emerging therapies in dogs with osteosarcoma. Backed by The Osteosarcoma Institute (OSI), this collaboration aims to generate enough data to launch at least two new pediatric clinical trials by 2030.

Funding Fuels Collaboration

To get the initiative off the ground, researchers on the Defying Osteosarcoma TeamLab spent eight months on project development, building a proposal for a four-year program of work combining resources, data, and expertise. The collaboration brings together more than 20 researchers from eight institutions, and notably, the project makes a point of bringing junior researchers into the fold, positioning them to grow into leadership roles and provide fresh energy to the research.

“What Break Through Cancer is doing well is uniting a diverse group of people, with different experiences across different institutions and different skill sets,” says Amy LeBlanc, DVM, director of the Comparative Oncology Program at the National Cancer Institute and a member of the Break Through Cancer team. “Break Through Cancer has representation from lots of different corners of the osteosarcoma spectrum.”

The project launched in September 2025 due in part by funding from OSI. Beyond providing financial support, Break Through Cancer manages the complex operational infrastructure that enables researchers across institutions to work together efficiently so scientists can focus on accelerating discovery.

The team calls their approach a “radical collaboration,” emphasizing that by working together, instead of in isolated silos, they can find breakthroughs faster.

“There’s an expectation that every voice counts and every opinion should be heard,” says Cheryl London, DVM, PhD, veterinary medical oncologist, professor of comparative oncology at the Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, and a member of the Break Through Cancer team. “The goal is to prioritize the science.”

Why Dogs Accelerate the Science

Because osteosarcoma is so common in dogs, researchers can study response of this cancer to a variety of different treatments very quickly. Importantly, these drugs can be studied in previously untreated osteosarcoma, which is difficult to do in human patients.

“The goal is to use this cross-species approach to find the relevant points of therapy that can be leveraged to improve outcomes, particularly for kids who fail therapy early or who present with spread of disease,” Dr. London says.

Not all osteosarcoma cases are alike. Researchers are testing molecularly guided therapies, including antibody-drug conjugates that target tumor cell surfaces and DNA damage response agents that disrupt genomic repair pathways in cancer cells.

Studying dogs helps researchers learn how promising treatments perform in human patients. When responses differ between dogs, the team finds out why and gathers insights to help guide the next phase of research. This process supports the development of treatment strategies to help both dogs and children.

“It is challenging to do these sort of rapid screening studies in humans,” Dr. London says.

Crucially, the trials are designed so the dogs are not harmed. Owners who enroll their pets understand the treatment may not help their own dog, but it may help someone else’s dog or someone’s child. Researchers monitor each dog’s quality of life, and participants can withdraw at any time.

“What Break Through Cancer is doing well is uniting a diverse group of people, with different experiences across different institutions and different skill sets.” —Amy LeBlanc, DVM, director of the Comparative Oncology Program at the National Cancer Institute

The Data Is Rolling In

While the project is still in its early phases, data is already flowing.

Researchers are uploading genomic information from mouse models, dogs, and humans into a data dashboard, where computational genomics experts are building tools to compare the species.

The team is investigating biological hurdles like chromothripsis, which is where chromosomes shatter and reassemble chaotically, driving genomic instability in up to 75 percent of osteosarcoma cases. They are also using liquid biopsies, testing blood plasma so they can track disease and catch treatment failures early.

“We are taking every bit of tumor tissue, metastatic tissue, and normal tissue, and interrogating it in every way we can,” Dr. LeBlanc says. “We are going to do whole genome sequencing. We are going to do pathology review. We will do IHC [immunohistochemistry] for immune cells. We will look at gene expression profiling techniques.”

The team enrolled the first dog in the OPTICS-C1 (Canine platform) clinical trial on July 14, 2026. The goal is to validate treatments that ultimately can be used in people with osteosarcoma.

Share Everything, Fast

Speed and openness matter. The team is committed to making its findings available as fast as they can.

Through DASH, Break Through Cancer’s data-sharing hub, the TeamLab has already shared more than 16 terabytes of research data, making it available to collaborators.

“We rapidly disseminate data so other people can use it for their own ideas,” Dr. LeBlanc says. “It’s a highly visible and transparent process. We could learn something interesting from someone who’s taking a different approach.”

And while the project’s focus is osteosarcoma, its ripple effects could benefit other cancer patients.

“Maybe people can take a page from our playbook and apply it to melanoma or prostate cancer or brain tumors,” Dr. LeBlanc says. “I’m excited to see where that goes.”