The term “in vitro” (Latin for “in glass”) refers to experiments carried out with components of a biological organism outside of its natural biological environment, usually under controlled laboratory conditions. This may include studies testing cells, biological molecules (e.g. DNA, proteins), organelles or other biological samples in an artificial environment such as a test tube (German translation: Reagenzglas), petri dish (German: Petrischale) or bioreactor.

Important aspects of in vitro research:

• Process modeling: In vitro studies make it possible to model and analyze biological and chemical processes at the molecular level without disturbing the complex processes within the organism.
• Controlled conditions: In vitro experiments make it possible to precisely control the experimental conditions, such as temperature and pH value, which is difficult to do in vivo.
• Safety and ethics: This type of research reduces the need to use animals for experimental purposes by offering an alternative that can be considered safer and more ethical .
• Limited transferability: The results of in vitro tests cannot always be transferred to living organisms, therefore, in some cases, the results still need be verified using in vivo tests.

In vitro tests are used in various areas, e.g. in pharmacological screenings (i.e. testing new active pharmaceutical ingredients on cell cultures to assess their efficacy and safety), molecular biology (i.e. investigating  the functions of genes and proteins), toxicology (i.e. determining the toxicity of substances using cell and tissue models) and disease research (i.e. modeling pathological processes in cell cultures in order to understand disease mechanisms and develop treatment methods).

In vitro methods play an important role in biomedical research (German: biomedizinische Forschung) as they provide powerful tools for understanding life processes and developing new drugs.

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