Karen R. Jacobson, MD, MPH

Associate Professor, Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine

Biography

Dr. Karen Jacobson is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Section of Infectious Diseases, Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine, with a secondary appointment in the Department of Epidemiology, Boston University School of Public Health. Dr. Jacobson’s research focuses on the epidemiology of tuberculosis, including identification of biological and social determinants of and risk factors for tuberculosis infection and disease (including drug resistant tuberculosis) and approaches for improving tuberculosis outcomes in resource-limited settings. Dr. Jacobson is the Medical Director of the Boston Medical Center Tuberculosis Clinic and has established a highly productive collaboration with researchers in Cape Town, South Africa. Her work has particular emphasis in understanding how substance use impacts on tuberculosis transmission and response to therapy.

Publications

  • Published 5/8/2025

    Marin MG, Quinones-Olvera N, Wippel C, Behruznia M, Jeffrey BM, Harris M, Mann BC, Rosenthal A, Jacobson KR, Warren RM, Li H, Meehan CJ, Farhat MR. Pitfalls of bacterial pan-genome analysis approaches: a case study of M. tuberculosis and two less clonal bacterial species. Bioinformatics. 2025 May 08. PMID: 40341387.

    Read at: PubMed

  • Published 4/20/2025

    Thomson SJ, Mistry R, Bayly H, Overbeck V, Sagar M, Schechter-Perkins EM, White LF, Jacobson KR, Bouton TC. Barriers to recruitment of an observational SARS-CoV-2 emergency department cohort at Boston Medical Center. BMC Emerg Med. 2025 Apr 20; 25(1):68. PMID: 40254607.

    Read at: PubMed

  • Published 3/27/2025

    Niemand N, Rooney JA, Malatesta S, Rawoot N, Bouton TC, Ragan EJ, Carney T, White LF, Farhat M, Horsburgh CR, Myers B, Warren RM, Jacobson KR. Contamination rates in serially sampled sputum specimens obtained during tuberculosis treatment to capture culture conversion. medRxiv. 2025 Mar 27. PMID: 40196277.

    Read at: PubMed

  • Published 3/12/2025

    Shapiro AN, Moultrie H, Jacobson KR, Bor J, da Silva P, Scott L, Jenkins HE. The risk of rifampicin-resistant TB after drug-susceptible TB treatment. IJTLD Open. 2025 Mar; 2(3):173-175. PMID: 40092522.

    Read at: PubMed

  • Published 3/11/2025

    Wijk M, Wasmann RE, Jacobson KR, Svensson EM, Denti P. A Pragmatic Approach to Handling Censored Data Below the Lower Limit of Quantification in Pharmacokinetic Modeling. CPT Pharmacometrics Syst Pharmacol. 2025 Mar 11. PMID: 40067154.

    Read at: PubMed

View All 91 Publications:   View Full Profile in BUMC

Other Positions

  • Associate Professor, Epidemiology
    Boston University School of Public Health
  • Member, Evans Center for Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research
    Boston University

Websites

Education

  • Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, MD
  • Harvard School of Public Health, MPH
  • Yale University, BS

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