Winding up the service – which has helped snare killers such as Soham murderer Ian Huntley and Suffolk Strangler Steve Wright – would see the country lose its position as world leader in crime-scene investigation, they suggest.
The quality of British justice would suffer because the free market would not provide some more expensive forms of analysis crucial to police investigations, they wrote in a letter to The Times.
Meanwhile, the Home Office's decision to break-up the Forensic Science Service (FSS) has been met with ''disbelief and dismay'' around the world, they claim.
The letter, signed by 33 leading forensic scientists, follows a backlash earlier this month against the planned closure of the service which makes an operating loss of £2 million per month.
It was signed by 33 international forensic scientists, including Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys, who pioneered DNA fingerprinting, a technique credited with revolutionising criminal investigation in the 1980s.