Tissue culture involves growing cells or tissues outside of the organism in a defined environment that can be easily manipulated. In 1885, Wilhelm Roux established the basic principle of tissue culture by maintaining a section of embryonic chicken tissue in saline solution. Modern tissue culture generally refers to growing cells from multicellular organisms in vitro. Tissue culture is an important tool for studying cell biology and provides a controlled environment for analysis. Plant tissue culture techniques allow for propagation of plants under sterile conditions and offer advantages over traditional propagation methods such as rapid cloning of desirable traits.