For the first time, researchers have developed primitive human kidneys in a laboratory dish, by using stem cells. The functions of a fully formed adult kidney can be performed by the created kidneys, but the researchers are hopeful that the achievement will someday result into new ways to treat people suffering from kidney failure.

The head of the Kidney Research Laboratory at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute in Australia, Melissa Little, said that it was very exciting. Little, who led the research published on Wednesday in the journal Nature, said that according to her this was a really big advance.

Kidneys play a very important role in our life as they perform a number of crucial bodily functions, such as filtering toxins from the blood and regulating blood pressure and bone density. But failure of kidneys can take place due to a variety of reasons like poisonings, infections and other diseases.

Little said, "The problem is that if something goes wrong with your kidneys, there are only two options and these have been the same for 50 years: You either have a transplant or go onto dialysis. So we really need alternative options".

For finding alternatives, Little and others have been, since long, trying to grow kidneys in the lab with the help of cells called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells.

Scientists have used iPS cells in creating many types of human cells, but they faced a lot of difficulty in using them to create a kidney.

"It's like a recipe," Little says. "We put different concentrations and types of growth factors in a certain order into the dish. And then when it gets to a certain size we take all the cells and make it into a ball."

"It's an incredible process," she says.