I saw on the news last night that US (and other) scientists have successfully produced stem cells after taking cells from a patient's skin and modifying them in such a way as to make them into anything they want. Inevitably, it will be a few years before human testing is carried out, but this approach apparently negates the ethical arguments over the use of embryos.
I found a link to this story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/22/science/22stem.html?_r=1&oref=slogin