Therapeutic cloning is a process that involves creating a cloned embryo for the sole purpose of producing embryonic stem cells with the same DNA as the donor cell. These stem cells can be used in experiments aimed at understanding disease and developing new treatments for disease. Therapeutic cloning is also known as somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) .

The process of therapeutic cloning involves removing the nucleus of an egg cell, replacing it with the material from the nucleus of a "somatic cell" (such as a skin cell) and stimulating this cell to begin dividing. This egg cell is never fertilized by sperm, and the genetic material is identical to that of the donor cell.

Therapeutic cloning has the potential to create various types of tissues such as osteoblasts to counteract osteoporosis. If a patients own cells were the source of stem cells used to create therapeutic cells or tissues, it is believed that immunological rejection could be avoided since the cells and tissues would genetically match his own.

It is important to distinguish therapeutic cloning from reproductive cloning, which involves creating an animal that is genetically identical to a donor animal through somatic cell nuclear transfer.