Dr. Konforte joined LifeLabs as a clinical biochemist in 2012 and became the laboratory director for the Sudbury and Thunder Bay LifeLabs locations in 2014. Dr. Konforte supports provincial routine chemistry and urinalysis testing as well as special chemistry testing including trace metals, calculi, and a number of HPLC- tests. She has a special interest in clinical toxicology testing as well as mass spectrometry-based method development and validation. Dr Konforte is Editor-in-Chief for ‘Inside Diagnostics’, LifeLabs’ Ontario quarterly newsletter for healthcare providers. In collaboration with Dr. Jan Palaty, Dr. Konforte helped to develop a transformational approach to testing for drugs in a patient’s system called the Comprehensive Drug Analysis. This new, proprietary, and simplified approach detects up to 200 drug targets in a patient’s system with a single test and provides results quickly and accurately to help save lives.
Dr. Konforte holds PhD in Immunology from the University of Toronto, where she also completed a clinical chemistry fellowship. Dr. Konforte did her postdoctoral research on anti-cancer agents in acute myeloid leukemia and posttranslational modifications of MYC oncogene at the Ontario Cancer Institute at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto. In 2013, Dr. Konforte completed certification requirements and became a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Clinical Biochemistry. She is a member of the IQMH Chemistry Scientific Committee and also serves as a Councillor for the Canadian Society of Clinical Chemists. Dr. Konforte is the author or co-author of 12 peer-reviewed articles, 11 posters and abstracts in her field of study, and her work has been well received at local, national and international conferences.
