ABSTRACT
Advancement of biology often requires the development of new materials, methods, and tools that can in turn signicantly accelerate scientic discoveries. The introduction of the Petri dish over 100 years ago provided an indispensable tool for culturing cells in vitro, thus permitted detailed dissection of seemingly intractable biology and physiology systems into manageable units and well-dened studies. This simple dish has had profound impact on our understanding of complex biology, especially cell biology and neurobiology.
