The 21st Century is the era of modem biology, of which the development of embryo and stem cell research has a great impact on human being and activities. The 2012 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to scientists, who working on cloning and stem cells research, predicting its burst development in both innovative and frontier aspects. In this paper, the authors review previous scientific ideas and discoveries, including the reversible differentiation theory of Spemann in 1932, the set-up of human in vitro fertilization (IVF) by Edwards and Steptoe in 1978, the use of nuclear replacement which allowing successful somatic cloning in 1997, the discovery of stem celIs in bone marrow in 1963 and the induced pluripotent stem cells in 2006. The development of related biotechnologies and their impacts on animal breeding, medicine and human health, as welI as biodiversity conservation for durable development has been discussed. the authors also present herein (i): the main results of research on embryo transfer, embryo production by IVF and somatic cell nuclear transfer, embryo cryopreservation and sex determination in domestic and wild animal species, as well as research on human stem cell banking and differentiation, which were carried out at the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, and (ii): their potential and challenge in a new local and international context.