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Dr. McKimm-Breschkin is currently an Honorary Fellow in the Microbiology and Immunology Department, Peter Doherty Institute, at the University of Melbourne. After completing a first class honours degree at Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, in 1974. Dr. McKimm-Breschkin won a Fulbright postgraduate award to the Microbiology department at Pennsylvania State University, Hershey Medical Centre, where she obtained her PhD in virology in 1978.

She returned to Melbourne University Microbiology department as a Queen Elizabeth II Post-doctoral fellow with research focussed on the recently discovered rotaviruses. A second postdoctoral position followed at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, as a Colin Syme Junior Fellow under the supervision of Jacques F. A. Miller working in the field of cellular immunology.

After working for the Australian Commonwealth Health Department for two years working on animal viruses, she joined the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in 1987. She was part of the team involved in the development of Relenza, the first neuraminidase inhibitor (NI), providing neuraminidase proteins for X-ray crystallography studies, as well as carrying out pre-clinical resistance studies as part of the drug registration.