noun
mass nounBiologyThe manipulation of individual cells under a microscope.
‘To make a more quantitative study of nuclear protein, a combination of tritium labeling, autoradiography, and micrurgy was performed with the amoeba cultures.’- ‘These spectacles are useful in endoscopic micrurgy, various medical fields, in jewelry, electronics, dentistry, and for making precision assemblies and the like.’
- ‘In recent years such high-precision instruments have been developed, and microsurgery on cells, known as micrurgy, has become an important part of the study of protoplasm.’
- ‘The agar gel apparently replaces the medium that evaporates, and there is no damage to the cells during the period required for micrurgy.’
- ‘A strain of large, free-living amoeba that became dependent on bacterial endosymbionts which had infected the amoebae initially as intracellular parasites, was studied by micrurgy and electron microscopy.’
Origin
1920s from micro- ‘small’ + Greek -ourgia ‘work’.
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