Ex vivo

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Ex vivo (Latin: out of the living) means that which takes place outside an organism. In science, ex vivo refers to experimentation done in or on living tissue in an artificial environment outside the organism. The most common "ex vivo" procedures involve living cells or tissues taken from an organism and cultured in a laboratory apparatus, usually under sterile conditions for a few days or weeks. The living cultured cells serve as models of the whole organism, reducing the need for vivisection. One widely performed ex vivo study is the chick chorioallontoic membrane (CAM) assay. In this assay, angiogenesis is promoted on the CAM membrane of a chick embryo outside the organism (chicken). Ex vivo studies are usually performed in vitro, although the use of these two words is not synonymous.

[edit] See also

• Animal testing
• in situ
• in utero
• in vitro
• in vivo