One of the country's leading scientists says funding cuts are putting the future of medical research in Australia at risk of a slump that could take decades to reverse.

Professor Robert Graham from the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute said Australia could become a "scientific banana republic" if more money was not pumped into research.

Professor Graham said jobs would be lost and talent be pushed overseas.

It is the latest bleak forecast for an industry that has been at the forefront of its field, producing some blockbuster scientific discoveries.

These include the bionic ear, the cervical cancer vaccine and most recently the world's first successful resuscitation and transplant of a 'dead' heart.

Professor Graham and his team from Victor Chang pioneered the latter discovery, which could potentially increase the number of heart transplants by 30 per cent.

"Worldwide it will allow countries for the first time to do heart transplants, who were never able to do them before," he said.

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But this golden age of research could fast be coming to an end.

Professor Graham said lack of funding in the research sector was stymieing the nation's scientific progress, threatening jobs, and could potentially wipe out an entire generation of young researchers.

"I've got grave fears for the research industry because we've got crippling reductions in the grants success rate," he said.

"If we don't do something about it, we're going to lose people because we can't keep employing them.

"We're going to lose also people wanting to get into science."

The warning comes just weeks after an award-winning evolutionary biologist turned down the most prestigious research fellowship for young scientists in the country.

Dr Danielle Edwards said the most recent round of funding cuts to science meant she saw no future in Australian science and was heading overseas.

Of the 3,700 applications submitted to the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) in 2014, just under 15 per cent were funded.

That is the lowest success rate in the 75-year history of the NHMRC, and it is expected to fall further in 2015 to just 12 per cent.

"We've had no increase in the NHMRC budget since 2006 and there's been more people [who] have come into the business," Professor Graham said.

"There've been more institutions that have been developed and we've had this enigma of continuing to increase the size of grants.

"And now we've had more five-year grants, which in and of itself is a good idea, but when you've got a time of austerity, you can't afford them because they reduce the number of grants you can fund."

Fears of decline in opportunities, increase in 'brain drain'

The future of research in Australia is on the minds of many of the nation's scientists.

The Melanoma Institute's Dr Georgina Long led a team of researchers in a discovery that is now revolutionising metastatic melanoma treatment.

The groundbreaking research was funded by the NHMRC but Dr Long fears up-and-coming scientists will not get the same opportunities.

"We've only got a population of 21 million, got the great education system, but opportunities to participate in groundbreaking research will decline with the loss of funding, and also the increase in brain drain as we educate these young people and they have to move overseas to find jobs," she said.

"It's a very difficult career path.

"In places like America and many places in Europe, you don't have to wait until you're in your mid to late 40s to be attracting grant money and running a lab doing interesting research, but in Australia that's a fact.

"If you're younger, it's very difficult to attract funding, but if there was more money in the pot, then younger people would also be getting some of that funding and being able to establish themselves earlier."

Dr Long said patients would also be directly affected by a lack in funding because without research participation, it is much more difficult to get access to new drugs or treatments.

The doctors agreed the Government's medical research future fund would be highly beneficial, but Professor Graham said that by the time politicians came to an agreement, it could be too late.

"It may not come about and it will be very, very slow before it generates significant increases in funding," he said.

"What I'm saying is that if we don't do something soon, we're going to lost a generation of scientists. So we need something done yesterday, not tomorrow."