Over the last ten years the impact of fundamental radiation biology into daily radiotherapy has been of concern chiefly to fractionation, prediction of radiation response, tumour oxygenation, intrinsic radiosensitivity including genetic approaches, and the determinants of the outcome of chemoradiotherapy combinations. Future goals will rely on sophisticated approaches, based on the progress of molecular and cellular biology and the characterisation of new targets for radiation. Some of these novel advances will be discussed.