Two laboratory advances aim to improve preclinical translation: a 3D-printed scaffold model refined glioblastoma drug screening to better mimic tumor microenvironments, and a Cell paper showed mast cell tryptase alters nuclear architecture to slow breast cancer proliferation. Both provide new experimental systems or targets for therapy discovery. The 3D scaffold approach (Annals of Biomedical Engineering) delivers a tissue-mimetic platform that preserves tumor heterogeneity for compound screening, addressing key limitations of 2D cultures and standard xenografts. The mast cell tryptase study reported an unexpected nuclear remodeling mechanism that suppressed proliferation, pointing to immune–tumor interactions as therapeutic levers. These results will be of interest to translational teams seeking more predictive screening models and novel immunomodulatory targets to advance candidate selection into in vivo studies and early clinical development.