Fruit flies have proven to be useful models to study kidney stones because they produce stones similar to those in humans. Using a fly model, a team of researchers led by urologist Dr. Thomas Chi of the University of California, San Francisco found that zinc plays a critical role in stone formation.

"So if we fed the fly zinc, they seem to increase their stone formation. If we reduce the amount of zinc inside their urine by either genetically knocking down their ability to transport zinc, or by giving them a drug that bound up all the zinc, their stone formation rates went down quite a lot, and so we think that without zinc present inside the kidney of the fly, stones are unable to form at the same rate."

Chi says that one of the goals is to prevent kidney stones from forming in the first place.

"We haven't had a new drug developed in the last twenty to twenty-five years. And so we're hoping that new research like this that looks at novel targets may open a window to develop new drugs."