Sarcoma–The standard-bearer in cancer discovery

•Groundbreaking discoveries for general cancer mechanisms have been made while studying sarcomas.•Cancer immunotherapy, oncogenes and tumor suppressors, and subclassification of cancers were first studied in sarcomas.•Sarcoma research is pushing the boundaries of our understanding for epigenetic mechanisms that promote tumor progression.•Sarcoma research is demonstrating the utilitity of immunotherapy for cancers with a low mutational burden.•Sarcoma clinical trials are modeling effective ways to conduct small patient trials.