Scientists have made extraordinary progress in a method of creating stem cells without using human embryos.

Since 2007, doctors at the Childrens Hospital - Boston have been fine-tuning the procedure. They said they can now re-program skin cells that appear virtually identical to embryonic stem cells.

Experts are praising the procedure as a breakthrough. Opponents of human embryonic stem cell research said this is the most convincing evidence yet that there are sufficient alternatives to using embryos.

Dr. David Stevens, CEO of the Christian Medical Association, talk more about the new procedure on the CBN Newschannel, Oct. 7. Click play to watch the interview.

"The method appears to be highly efficient, which implies the resulting (induced pluripotent stem cells) will be of good quality," said Marius Wernig, an iPS researcher at Stanford University.

Scientists hope the new technique will lead to cures for diseases like Diabetes, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's as well as methods to heal spinal cord injuries.

"It will take further work to see if the initial promise is borne out," Wernig said. "If so, it would be the first practical method for generating iPS cells that could be used for transplant therapies," he said.