Break Through Cancer Launches Largest-Ever Investment in Pediatric Osteosarcoma Research

Backed by a $15 million investment, families, funders, and researchers unite to advance long-awaited breakthroughs against this deadly childhood bone cancer

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Sept. 18, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Supported by patient-driven foundations, eight leading research institutions, including over 20 researchers, and a $15 million dollar investment, Break Through Cancer's Defying Osteosarcoma TeamLab mobilizes the largest, most unified effort in pediatric osteosarcoma research in North America.

While other cancers have benefited from waves of innovation and precision medicine, the standard chemotherapy treatment for osteosarcoma has remained unchanged for more than four decades. An aggressive bone cancer affecting hundreds of children and adolescents each year, osteosarcoma is a devastating diagnosis, with approximately one-third of osteosarcoma patients succumbing to their disease and nearly all are left with profound, life-altering consequences from amputations, limb-sparing surgeries, and the impact of high-dose chemotherapy. For those whose disease has spread to the lungs, the odds are much worse, with survival dropping to about 20-30%.

Now, a coalition of families touched by osteosarcoma, advocacy organizations, and philanthropic foundations have come together with unprecedented unity to enable this research initiative.

"The osteosarcoma community's collective resolve stems from the fact that children and adolescents with osteosarcoma have faced largely unchanged outcomes for over 40 years. They deserve better," said Mac Tichenor, president of The Osteosarcoma Institute, a foundation focused on increasing osteosarcoma treatment options and survival rates through funding promising breakthrough science. "This Break Through Cancer project brings a bold, broad collaboration, from discovery through clinical trials, that offers the best hope in decades for improving their futures."

The Defying Osteosarcoma TeamLab is designed to dismantle the barriers that have historically slowed progress in this disease: inadequate data sharing, siloed infrastructure, and absence of unified investment. By aligning institutions, data, and funding under a single collaborative framework, the TeamLab brings together more than 20 researchers from eight institutions (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, BC Cancer Research Institute, Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University, Stanford Medicine, and The UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center) in a coordinated, multi-year effort to rewrite the future of osteosarcoma care.

Unlike traditional research groups, the Defying Osteosarcoma TeamLab is an internationally integrated team dedicated to radical collaboration to tackle this devastating childhood cancer. Researchers will work collaboratively across institutions, sharing samples, insights, and data in real-time. This cross-institutional collaboration, led by Break Through Cancer, ensures that discoveries are shared and that every patient's data contributes to a broader understanding of the disease.

"What makes the Defying Osteosarcoma TeamLab different is not just the scale of investment, it's the strategy. We're aligning institutions, data, and funding in a way that makes real, lasting progress not only possible, but inevitable. It's time to provide these children with new treatment strategies and not the same protocols developed in the last century," said Tyler Jacks, President of Break Through Cancer.

The project will be driven by a set of shared goals: to build infrastructure that enables smarter trials, to generate the biological insights needed for personalized treatment, and to lay the groundwork for a new standard of care. While the initiative includes clinical and laboratory work, its core promise lies in something deeper, a sustained commitment to doing osteosarcoma research differently, and smarter. As Break Through Cancer and its collaborators launch the Defying Osteosarcoma TeamLab, the message is clear, patients and families facing osteosarcoma deserve more than incremental progress. They deserve an ambitious plan that unites the best minds, the best institutions, and the most determined advocates.

About Break Through Cancer

Founded in 2021, Break Through Cancer empowers outstanding researchers and physicians to both intercept and find cures for several of the deadliest cancers by stimulating radical collaboration among outstanding cancer research institutions, including its founding partners: Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, MIT's Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins, and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

The Foundation is supported by a Board of Directors from the five partner institutions and a Scientific Advisory Board of U.S. cancer experts. The Foundation was launched with an extraordinary challenge pledge of $250 million from Mr. and Mrs. William H. Goodwin, Jr. and their family, and the estate of William Hunter Goodwin III.

For further information, please visit the Foundation's website at www.breakthroughcancer.org.

About the Defying Osteosarcoma TeamLab and its Supporters

The Defying Osteosarcoma TeamLab is a Break Through Cancer initiative launched to accelerate progress against pediatric osteosarcoma. This effort unites leading researchers across [Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, BC Cancer Research Institute, Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University, Stanford Medicine, The UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center] with the support of patient-driven foundations and advocacy organizations [The Osteosarcoma Institute, Battle Osteosarcoma, Terry Fox Research Institute, QuadW Foundation, The Bardo Foundation, St. Baldrick's Foundation, Children's Cancer Research Fund, Rally Foundation for Childhood Cancer Research, Lyda Hill Philanthropies, MIB Agents Osteosarcoma Alliance, TeamIzzy Foundation, The Power of Will, Turn it Gold, The Fichtenbaum Charitable Trust] and family donors touched by osteosarcoma [Mike and April Egge, Mary Anne and Paul Fego, Macen C Holderman Charitable Giving Fund, The Shumadine Family, Sid and Karen Sijbrandij, Zach Sobiech Osteosarcoma Fund, Mac and Lisa Tichenor]. Together, they are committed to ushering in the breakthroughs children and families facing osteosarcoma have long deserved.

Media Contact:
Soracha Ward, Communications Manager, Break Through Cancer, [email protected]

SOURCE Break Through Cancer