cells Review Current and Future Perspectives of the Use of Organoids in Radiobiology Peter W. Nagle 1,* and Robert P. Coppes 2,3 1 Cancer Research UK Edinburgh Centre, MRC Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH4 2XR, UK 2 Department of Biomedical Sciences of Cells & Systems, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, 9700 RB Groningen, The Netherlands;
[email protected] 3 Department of Radiation Oncology, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, 9700 RB Groningen, The Netherlands * Correspondence:
[email protected] Received: 23 November 2020; Accepted: 8 December 2020; Published: 9 December 2020 Abstract: The majority of cancer patients will be treated with radiotherapy, either alone or together with chemotherapy and/or surgery. Optimising the balance between tumour control and the probability of normal tissue side effects is the primary goal of radiation treatment. Therefore, it is imperative to understand the effects that irradiation will have on both normal and cancer tissue. The more classical lab models of immortal cell lines and in vivo animal models have been fundamental to radiobiological studies to date. However, each of these comes with their own limitations and new complementary models are required to fill the gaps left by these traditional models. In this review, we discuss how organoids, three-dimensional tissue-resembling structures derived from tissue-resident, embryonic or induced pluripotent stem cells, overcome the limitations of these models and thus have a growing importance in the field of radiation biology research. The roles of organoids in understanding radiation-induced tissue responses and in moving towards precision medicine are examined.