US President George W. Bush said Friday he would veto any legislation aimed at loosening restrictions on embryonic stem cell research and voiced concern about the latest advancement in human cloning research in South Korea.

"I'm very concerned about cloning," Bush told reporters in the White House. "I worry about a world in which cloning becomes acceptable."

South Korean scientists reported on Friday they had successfully created lines of embryonic stem cells from patients.

And their research got less than 200,000 US dollars a year in funds mainly from the government.

The South Korean achievement gives momentum to a bipartisan bill in the Congress trying to lift Bush's ban on federal financial support for embryonic stem cell research in the United States.

"I made it very clear to the Congress that the use of federal money, taxpayers' money to promote science which destroys life in order to save life -- I'm against that. And therefore if the bill does that, I will veto it," Bush said.

Co-sponsor of the bill, Republican Mike Castle, said the bill would not allow the cloning of embryos or embryo destruction, but to allow federal funded researchers use embryos left over from fertility treatments to get stem cells.

Embryonic stem cells have the potential to grow into any cell or tissue in the body. Scientists believe they could one day train embryonic stem cells to grow into whatever needed for treatment of diseases like spinal cord injuries, Alzheimer's disease, diabetes and Parkinson's disease.

However, culling stem cells from human embryos has to kill the embryos, making the research ethically controversial.

Source: Xinhua