Will we ever create an "in vitro" galaxy? Yes, I think so. It probably won't be during our lifetime. That is simply because we don't have the understanding of what it takes to form a galaxy. Everything that physicsts and astronomers have predicted (or understood) so far has been a result of observations occuring in outer space. What we know about forming and sustaining a galaxy is far far less than what we do not. We don't even understand Big Bang in its entirety. Don't forget that all this science makes sense, but no one disagrees that all the key events that help us form our understanding creation of galaxies had a slim chance of happening. It was the right amount, at right place and right time (heck, we don't even know how time fits into the picture of origin of all things). But I do believe that we are moving rapidly closer to the answer.

Think of it this way; the puzzle is like connect the dots. Only a few of the dots have been revealed so far. As further research is done, we hope to not only add more dots that indicate what the actual image would look like, but ALSO add dots near the dots that already exist (to help refine the picture :) Current research around the world is trying to solve some of these problems in two ways. One way is to recreate what is already observed out there, and the other way is to do a best-guess experiment to see if a few dots can be added to the picture.

Remember, one of the biggest hurdles is veryfing and recreating phenomena such as black hole, sub-atomic particle interactions, time, experiments beyond speed-of-light, etc. I do hope that we'll be able to see these major experiments forming (probably not recreated in their entirety) shape in our lifetime. And yes, LHC is one of those experiment. I'm extremely hopeful of it's results. Let's see what happens.

Hope this helped.

Very interesting question.

We are currently in the process of trying to re-create the Big Bang with the Large Hadron Collider, so I don't see why it would be impossible to simulate the conditions that are necessary to produce a galaxy.

I certainly don't think it is going to happen any time in the near future, but anything is possible.