HellKisa Alexander Zabrodskiy · Medical Scientist
Alexander Zabrodskiy (HellKisa, Alex Z) - Medical Scientist Profile Photo

Alexander Zabrodskiy

Medical Scientist, Microbiology · Melbourne, Australia

Medical Scientist in microbiology at Footscray Hospital, second-in-charge of the department, with nine years in diagnostic microbiology across high-volume private pathology and public hospital laboratories. I work across the bench, the automation and the quality system, and I care about getting accurate results to clinicians quickly.

Clinical Diagnostics

Specimen & Culture Analysis

  • Sterile Site & CSF Culture
  • Blood Culture Workup
  • Mycology & Parasitology

Instrumentation

Automation & Technology

  • Bruker MALDI Biotyper (MALDI-TOF)
  • Total Lab Automation (BD Kiestra)
  • VITEK 2 & BD BACTEC

Quality & Operations

Compliance & Resistance Analysis

  • NATA & ISO 15189 Systems
  • EUCAST/CLSI Interpretation
  • ESBL & MDR Detection

Beyond the Microscope

Away from the bench I photograph things that are either very far away or very small: star trails, planets, insects and fungi at macro range. The micrographs below are from work. The rest is on Unsplash.

OPEN ACCESS: Images available for educational use under CC BY-NC 4.0.
Required Attribution: "Micrograph by Alexander Zabrodskiy (HellKisa)"

Professional Statement

Medical Scientist with nine years in diagnostic microbiology across high-volume private pathology and public hospital laboratories. Currently second-in-charge for microbiology at Footscray Hospital, covering bench workflow, instrument oversight, consumable supply and quality documentation. Experienced across total laboratory automation, MALDI-TOF identification, antimicrobial susceptibility testing and NATA-accredited quality systems.

Employment History

Medical Scientist (Grade 2), Microbiology

Alfred Pathology, Footscray Hospital (Alfred and Monash Health Shared Pathology Service)

Dec 2025 - Current

  • Act as second-in-charge for microbiology at the Footscray site (from July 2026), coordinating daily operations across bench workflow, instrument oversight, consumable supply and quality documentation.
  • Configure Synapsys bench workflows, including organism linking and specimen-specific action sets, replacing an inherited list applied uniformly across every bench and reordering default actions so the most-used appear first.
  • Chair departmental staff meetings, covering workflow changes, incidents and quality items.
  • Verify proposed LIS and middleware changes in production before release, covering order sets, specimen registration and instrument order download.
  • Investigate automation and interface incidents with Pathology IT and vendors across Kiestra, Synapsys and PathNet, including a workbench buffering fault resolved by disabling a client connection setting, and monitor staged fixes through to closure.
  • Manage consumable procurement and stock levels, including contingency workflows during media supply shortages.

Medical Scientist, Microbiology

Melbourne Pathology

2017 - 2025

  • Performed high-volume diagnostic testing across CSF, blood cultures, tissues and sterile fluids, consulting directly with physicians and pathologists on significant results.
  • Interpreted antimicrobial susceptibility by disc diffusion and VITEK, including critically important resistances such as ESBLs, with referral to MDU where required.
  • Operated and maintained automated platforms: BD Kiestra, bioMerieux MALDI-TOF, VITEK 2, BD BACTEC, TECAN and Atellica 1500.
  • Performed urine and parasite microscopy, including RBC morphology and sediment analysis.
  • Maintained NATA accreditation through daily quality control, media and method validation, and documentation of results and deviations against laboratory SOPs.
  • Trained and mentored new scientists and laboratory assistants.
  • Joined in 2017 as a laboratory assistant, running the out-of-hours microbiology bench independently across the full specimen range.

Research Scientist

Tertiary teaching hospital laboratory (overseas)

2021 - 2022

  • Contributed to work on thymoquinone as a candidate treatment for Nakaseomyces glabrata.
  • Conducted a study of antibiotic resistance and emerging ESBL patterns in Klebsiella pneumoniae.

Technical Skills

  • Automation and identification: BD Kiestra total laboratory automation (advanced certification), MALDI-TOF (Bruker MALDI Biotyper and bioMerieux), VITEK 2, BD BACTEC blood culture systems, BioFire, TECAN, Atellica 1500, PREVI Isola.
  • Diagnostics: sterile site and CSF culture, blood culture workup, mycology, parasitology, urine and sediment microscopy, phenotypic AST by disc diffusion and automated methods.
  • Antimicrobial resistance: EUCAST and CLSI interpretation, ESBL and multi-resistant organism detection, referral of isolates to reference laboratories including MDU.
  • Quality: NATA and ISO 15189 quality systems, QC review and troubleshooting, incident and deviation documentation, SOP authoring.
  • Systems: Synapsys, PathNet, Oracle, Apollo.

Education & Certification

AIMS Certification

Australian Institute of Medical and Clinical Scientists

Bachelor of Biomedical Science (Microbiology)

RMIT University

2017 - 2021

Diploma of Laboratory Technology

RMIT University

2016 - 2017