Isolated rabbit eye or IRE can be used for educational purposes, as source materials or as a replacement alternative to the in vivo Draize test. The IRE test method was developed by Burton et al. (1981) and proposed as a preliminary in vitro screen for the assessment of severe eye irritants. The IRE test also referred to as the Rabbit Enucleated Eye Test (REET) has as its principal advantage that it eliminates the use of live animals for ocular irritancy testing and thus the pain and suffering potentially associated with in vivo Draize rabbit eye test. Another advantage of the IRE test method is that it typically uses eyes isolated from euthanized rabbits used for other research purposes or from animals sacrificed commercially as a food source.Synonyms: Isolated rabbit eye, IRE, REET, rabbit eye test