Instead Prof Crook and his team hope to one day create regenerative treatments for neurological disorders like epilepsy, stroke, schizophrenia and Parkinson's disease.

The team is using electrical stimulation to produce living human neural tissue from stem cells.

This could eventually lead to scientists being able to regenerate tissues or organs within the body, or in the lab, by creating more 'excitable' nerve cells.

The team has also discovered a way to increase the cells response to drugs, which could mean patients could use electrical therapy to reduce their medication needs.

"Using electrical stimulation, we may be able to modify our current approach to using a drug therapy for a disorder or disease," he said.

"By requiring lower doses, you would hopefully reduce some of the side effects one would usually get with a particular drug."

The groundbreaking work has been recognised by Research Australia, with Prof Crook a finalist for its inaugural Frontiers Research Award.

Winners for the peak body's Health and Medical Research Awards will be announced this Thursday at a ceremony in Melbourne.

"My lab is progressing a program of research that brings together human stem cells with novel bio- and electro-materials to build living 3D synthetic tissues for a range of applications," Prof Crook said.

"(These include) studying tissue biology - healthy and diseased - for improvement or replacement of tissues of the human body, and building medical devices for regenerative medicine.

"Our approach extends to using electrostimulation to influence cell behaviour for an enhanced approach to engineering or regenerating tissues; somewhat echoing Frankenstein's dream of using electricity to enliven tissue albeit more real-world and practical."

Prof Crook said the human body was naturally bioelectric, with organs and tissues using natural electrical activity to develop, and to heal.

In neural tissues, bioelectricity functions to regulate the communication and signalling between excitable cells like neurons during early brain development, regeneration and many other processes.

"Going forward, our work could assist in the treatment of a multitude of conditions including neurological disorders such as epilepsy, schizophrenia, Parkinson's disease and stroke to name a few," he said, "as well as tackling the current shortage of donor tissues for vital replacement therapies following trauma and disease."