Tufts University Joins Global Effort to Find Better Treatments for Osteosarcoma
Veterinary oncologists at Tufts University are part of the largest coordinated osteosarcoma research initiative ever launched, using clinical trials in pet dogs to generate insights that could change outcomes for children and young adults.
Dr Cheryl London and Dr Heather Gardner from Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University have joined the Defying Osteosarcoma TeamLab, a $15 million initiative led by Break Through CancerA disease where cells divide and grow uncontrollably and can spread to other areas of the body. that brings together more than 20 researchers from eight leading institutions. The Bardo Foundation is one of the patient-driven foundations funding this work.
Why dogs are central to this research
More than 25,000 pet dogs in the United States are diagnosed with osteosarcoma every year, far more than the circa 1,000 people who receive the diagnosis annually. That difference matters for research.
The cancer in dogs is strikingly similar to the disease seen in children and young adults. It develops in the bone, spreads to the lungs in the same way, and carries very similar genetic mutations. Because there are so many more canine cases, it is possible to run clinical trials that would be very difficult to conduct in human medicine alone, where patient numbers limit what can be studied.
Tufts plans to offer four to six clinical trials for pet dogs with osteosarcoma over the first four years of the initiative, with the flexibility to expand or change direction as new findings emerge from across the collaboration.
What makes the Tufts contribution distinctive
Dr Gardner brings deep expertise in advanced genomics, including liquid biopsy, a technique that analyses circulating tumour DNAThe molecule that contains the genetic information that makes you the person you are. (ctDNA) and immune responses from blood samples, rather than requiring invasive tissue biopsies. This can be used to monitor how well a treatment is working and to detect signs of relapse earlier than standard imaging.
Tufts also brings a well-established clinical trials infrastructure. The school’s strong enrolment capacity and cutting-edge genomics and pathology resources allow researchers to directly connect biological data to patient outcomes. This is a critical link when trying to understand why some patients respond to treatment and others do not.
As Dr London explains: “Collecting and integrating data about the genomics and outcomes associated with this cancer across species could eliminate a lot of that noise and answer important questions that allow us to identify the key genetic changes that help drive osteosarcoma development and progression.”
The problem with existing research models
One reason osteosarcoma has been so hard to study is that laboratory mouse models do not fully replicate what happens in the human body. The immune system is largely absent in these models, but it plays a central role in how cancer progresses and how it develops resistance to treatment.
Pet dogs enrolled in clinical trials have intact immune systems, just like people do. That means findings from canine trials are more likely to translate into effective human treatments than results from traditional preclinical work alone.
There is also a practical advantage: osteosarcoma progresses more rapidly in dogs, often becoming fatal within one to two years. This means researchers can observe how a new therapy performs over a shorter timeframe, and apply what they learn more quickly.
“As our canine patients likely will not be cured by current treatments, we have good reason to try new therapies upfront in pets that we wouldn’t try yet in people,” says Dr Gardner. “We also can see how our canine patients respond to new therapies over a much shorter time span and then apply what we learn for the benefit of both species.”
The focus on metastasis
Osteosarcoma spreads most often to the lungs. Once it reaches that stage, it becomes resistant to almost all available treatments in both humans and dogs. Understanding why and identifying ways to prevent or delay that spread is one of the central goals of this work.
By tightly linking laboratory discoveries to real-world clinical trials and sharing data across all eight institutions in real time, the TeamLab is designed to accelerate progress on this specific challenge faster than any individual institution could.
The Bardo Foundation’s role
The Bardo Foundation has committed $500,000 over four years to support this initiative.
This investment reflects the Foundation’s view that the Defying Osteosarcoma TeamLab represents something different: a shift from fragmented, slow-moving research to a coordinated, data-driven approach with real potential to change outcomes.
What this means
This is long-term research. Changes to treatment will take time. But the work at Tufts linking genomics, liquid biopsy, and clinical trials across species is directly targeted at the questions that matter most: why osteosarcoma spreads, how to detect it earlier, and how to design treatments that are more likely to work.
“Ultimately, our goal is to cure more people and dogs of this devastating disease,” says Dr London.
Clinical trials remain one of the most important routes to accessing new and emerging treatment options. If you are exploring what is available, the Osteosarcoma Now Clinical Trial Explorer is updated regularly to support that process.
Source: Finding Better Answers for Patients With a Deadly Bone Cancer, Tufts Now, June 2026.