Beyond genomics: 3D microtumor assays for rapid, clinically relevant functional drug testing.

Precision oncology is increasingly moving beyond genomics alone to approaches that directly test how patient tumors respond to therapy. This shift reflects a central challenge in oncology, where sequencing alone often fails to identify effective therapies for rare, treatment-resistant, or genomically ambiguous tumors. Here, we highlight three-dimensional (3D) microtumor models as a powerful functional platform that preserves the architecture, cell types, and microenvironment of intact tumors for drug screening. By capturing biology that 2D models and genomics alone miss, this approach enables more accurate prediction of therapeutic vulnerabilities and expands the precision-oncology toolkit for patients who currently lack actionable options.