Mayo Clinic reproductive endocrinologist and infertility specialist Daniel A. Dumesic, M.D., said that it would be the same technique that was used by Scottish scientists to clone the adult sheep Dolly and is called somatic cell nuclear transfer (Science). The technique would involve taking an unfertilized egg from a human female, removing the nucleus that contains the genetic information, and replacing it with the nucleus from a cell " any cell " of the person to be cloned. This egg, with its new nucleus, is then "tricked" into believing it's been fertilized by a sperm, is re-implanted into the mother and begins to develop just as any other embryo would. The difference is this embryo doesn't share genetic information from two parents; it will grow to be an exact replica of the person who donated the nucleus in the beginning (Science).
There also has been a breakthrough with human stem cells. University of Wisconsin-Madison developmental biologist Gearhart says he's confirmed the presence of hematopoietic cells -- cells that can form any blood cell -- among the descendants of the embryonic stem cells. Since the stem cells are the ancestors of all blood cells- red and white-one of their first clinical uses could be restoring the blood system after certain cancer treatments. Since blood stem cells can form the CD-4 immune cells that are killed by HIV, the AIDS virus, doctors might be able to replace these essential disease-fighting cells for AIDS patients (Science). The stem cells can also be grown to produce organs or tissues to repair or replace damaged ones. Skin for burn victims, brain cells for the brain damaged, spinal cord cells, hearts, lungs, livers, and kidneys could be produced.
There are enough potential medical benefits derived from the cloning of human, however, any potential benefits that are expected through the technology of human can be found through animal cloning.