For over a century, the petri dish has been oncology's primary window into cancer biology — a flat, artificial stage on which tumors perform in ways that rarely translate to the patient's body. Now, 3D bioprinting technology is offering researchers something closer to the truth: living, layered tumor models built from decellularized tissue scaffolds and precisely deposited bio-inks that recreate the structural complexity of actual disease. In the difficult terrain of head and neck cancer, where a tumor's microenvironment shapes its resistance as much as its genetics do, this shift from two dim