In vitro (Latin: "within glass") means within a test tube, or, more generally, outside a living organism or cell. An example is In Vitro Fertilization. Alternatives of in vitro include in vivo and in silico: within an organism, and computational, respectively. As many experiments that deal with molecular biology are conducted outside of organisms or cells, and the conditions do not necessarily represent the conditions inside the cell, results are often annotated with in vivo, in vitro, or in silico, as applies.
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