It's not clear that it comes easily to Dunwoodie, either, but it's a regular part of her job, working at the frontier of genetic coding to decipher which of our 20,000 genomes are activated to help a baby's heart develop in utero.

When I ask how important failure is to her work, she laughs, and tells me about the current research project into birth defects that she's running as head of embryology at the Victor Chang Institute.

It's the biggest in Australia by a long stretch, and one of the biggest in respect of overseas research. Through it she hopes to find which genetic mutations trigger congenital heart disease.

"Are we setting up to fail?" she says.

"We don't know how successful this will be. We have predictions, that we might be able to solve 30 per cent or 40 per cent of cases, but it's in the failure of the other 60 or 70 per cent that we will learn more, so we can know what we need to do next time."

But what constitutes failure, on a larger scale, she wonders. "Is it a total failure, even if we solve a small percentage of cases? Or is that right, from a cost­-benefit perspective? Could or should money be spent differently?"

Part of the difficulty scientists face, in embracing what American professors of management like Sim Sitkin refer to as "intelligent failure", is the hurdle it places on projects, at the leading edge of science, being granted funding.

"There is a chronic lack of funding in this country, only 10 per cent of grant applications get funding, down from 25 per cent last year, even though they [the funding bodies] say 70 per cent of applications are worthy," Dunwoodie says.

"So everyone is safe.They like you to find safe things, to have done the work basically before you've got the money. That research is important, but then there is another type of research which is big, interdisciplinary, it's a bit unknown, you don't really know what you'll end up with and there's a fear of failure."

And that's where Dunwoodie's interests lie.

In Australia, about eight babies are born each day with a congenital heart defect. In the United States, it's 40,000 a year. Worldwide, that figure is about 1 million. For the serious cases, they need open heart surgery within 48 hours, cutting into hearts the size of a walnut. Some children require three open heart surgeries before kindergarten.

Heart defects account for 30 per cent of all birth defects, but scientists still don't know why they happen, or who might be at risk, genetically.Until recently, money and technology has held research back.

But Dunwoodie says that has changed, and researchers can more easily sequence all of a person's 20,000 genes in one hit, even sequencing entire genomes, which includes the genes and the DNA material between them.

"When the human genome was first sequenced, it took a decade and $3 million, now it can be sequenced in a week for $1600 ... Cheap technology means we can think bigger than we've ever had the possibility to do."

In 2003, at Sydney's Westmead Children's hospital, cardiac surgeon David Winlaw hit on the idea of starting a DNA bank, collecting samples from his patients and their families in the hope that one day it would be useful.

"We're talking about sifting through 3 billion pieces of information per person," Dunwoodie says of her decision to sequence the 2000 samples in the DNA bank, and more that her own team of researchers have collected.

"It's just absolutely phenomenal. That kind of project though, the government funding agencies are not going to fund. It's a fishing expedition, you don't know what you're going to find, you need a lot of money and it's risky. But how are you ever going to get anywhere unless you push the boundaries?"

The money problem has been solved, at least in part, by donations over the past three years from Chain Reaction, a group of lycra­-clad senior executives who ride 1000 kilometres each year raising money for children's charities.

"I get anxious about the size of the project, what people might expect ... In the business world, people might expect things to happen quickly, or for an 80 per cent success rate," Dunwoodie says.

"This is a long slow business."

The Australian Financial Review/Westpac 100 Women of Influence Awards promote bold and diverse women championing change in business and society. Enter yourself or someone you know in one or more of the 10 categories: local/regional, board/management, innovation, culture, public policy, business enterprise, diversity, young leader, global, social enterprise/not­for­profit. Entries close August 9. For more information go to 100 Women of influence.