They used induced pluripotent skin cells, or iPS cells -- cells that have been reprogrammed to look and act like embryonic stem cells. Embryonic stem cells, taken from days-old embryos, have the power to morph into any cell type and, in mice, can be implanted into a mother's womb to create living mouse pups."
One more step and there will never be any need to use embryonic stem cells. That last step is to segregate the iPS cells by type, enabling the laboratory to grow specific organs in vitro. In other words, skip the embryo-creation step in cloning and go directly to cloning a specific organ to match a specific donor. Now that we have all these life-prolonging procedures, there would be a good chance that the donor would live long enough to become their own organ recipient with no potential of rejection.
One approach would be to discover, if possible, the difference between iPS cells made from skin and those made from another organ. So far, there is no known difference between iPS cells and embryonic stem cells produced by the current procedures, so research looking for such differences will become very important.
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