Natasha S. Hochberg, MD, MPH
Associate Professor, Medicine
Biography
Natasha Hochberg, MD, MPH is Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine (Section of Infectious Diseases) at BU School of Medicine and in the Department of Epidemiology at BU School of Public Health. She is also the Program Director for the Infectious Disease Fellowship Program. Prior to her arrival at Boston University, Dr. Hochberg was an Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) officer at the Centers for Disease and Prevention (CDC) in the Division of Parasitic Diseases and worked internationally on projects related to malaria, visceral leishmaniasis, guinea worm disease, and lymphatic filariasis.
Dr. Hochberg’s current research focuses on tropical diseases. Particularly, she studies the impact of malnutrition and parasitic disease on tuberculosis (TB), tropical diseases in immigrant populations, and preventing diseases in international travelers. She is the principal investigator of the TB LION study (Learning the Impact Of Nutrition) in Pondicherry India. This study of household contacts of TB cases evaluates the impact of malnutrition and parasite infections on the immune response to TB and how this changes after providing a high-protein food package, multivitamin, and deworming. She is also site principal investigator of the the US-Indo RePORT study in Pondicherry, India, a cohort of 1100 TB patients and 1500 of their household contacts. The study aims to identify biomarkers that predict TB treatment failure and risk of developing TB (among exposed persons) and to identify how comorbidities (e.g., diabetes, helminth infections) modulate these profiles and risks. She is also the co-investigator of an R01 studying TB in pregnancy in India; the study looks at pharmacokinetics of TB drugs in pregnancy, assesses neonatal outcomes, and evaluates diagnostic testing for latent TB infection in pregnant women. She was the previous recipient of a K-12 BIRCWH award to study the effect of aging on the immune response to latent TB infection in Boston-area nursing home residents.
She is the co-director of the travel clinic at Boston Medical Center (BMC) where she sees travelers and patients with tropical diseases with a particular focus on Chagas disease and other parasitic infections. She serves as the co-site director for GeoSentinel, an international surveillance system of diseases in travelers and migrants, and participates in studies related to tropical medicine and travelers health. At a national level, she is part of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene where she serves as a Councilor for the Clinical Group, as a member of the Scientific Program Committee, and as the Chair for the Subcommittee on Pneumonia, Respiratory Infections and TB. She also sees patients at the Center for Infectious Diseases and attends on the infectious disease consult service.
Dr. Hochberg has taught courses at BU School of Public Health on Infectious Disease Epidemiology (EP755) and Outbreak Investigations (EP800).
Other Positions
- Associate Professor, Epidemiology, Boston University School of Public Health
- Member, Evans Center for Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research, Boston University
Education
- Case School of Medicine, MD
- Emory University, MPH
- Harvard University, BA
Publications
- Published on 2/14/2023
Hochberg NS, Montgomery SP. Chagas Disease. Ann Intern Med. 2023 Feb; 176(2):ITC17-ITC32. PMID: 36780647.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 1/30/2023
Wang X, VanValkenberg A, Odom-Mabey AR, Ellner JJ, Hochberg NS, Salgame P, Patil P, Johnson WE. Comparison of gene set scoring methods for reproducible evaluation of multiple tuberculosis gene signatures. bioRxiv. 2023 Jan 30. PMID: 36711818.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 1/3/2023
DiLorenzo MA, Davis MR, Dugas JN, Nelson KP, Hochberg NS, Ingalls RR, Mishuris RG, Schechter-Perkins EM. Performance of three screening tools to predict COVID-19 positivity in emergency department patients. Emerg Med J. 2023 Jan 03. PMID: 36596666.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 12/1/2022
Van Egeren D, Stoddard M, Malakar A, Ghosh D, Acharya A, Mainuddin S, Majumdar B, Luo D, Nolan RP, Joseph-McCarthy D, White LF, Hochberg NS, Basu S, Chakravarty A. No magic bullet: Limiting in-school transmission in the face of variable SARS-CoV-2 viral loads. Front Public Health. 2022; 10:941773. PMID: 36530725.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 11/30/2022
Kalva J, Babu SP, Narasimhan PB, Raghupathy K, Ezhumalai K, Knudsen S, Horsburgh CR, Hochberg N, Salgame P, Roy G, Ellner J, Sarkar S. Predictors of weight loss during the intensive phase of tuberculosis treatment in patients with drug-susceptible pulmonary tuberculosis in South India. J Public Health (Oxf). 2022 Nov 30. PMID: 36451280.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 11/25/2022
Sinha P, Ponnuraja C, Gupte N, Babu SP, Cox SR, Sarkar S, Mave V, Paradkar M, Cintron C, Govindarajan S, Kinikar A, Priya N, Gaikwad S, Thangakunam B, Devarajan A, Dhanasekaran M, Tornheim JA, Gupta A, Salgame P, Christopher DJ, Kornfeld H, Viswanathan V, Ellner JJ, Horsburgh CR, Gupte AN, Padmapriyadarsini C, Hochberg NS. Impact of Undernutrition on Tuberculosis Treatment Outcomes in India: A Multicenter Prospective Cohort Analysis. Clin Infect Dis. 2022 Nov 25. PMID: 36424864.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 10/20/2022
VanValkenburg A, Kaipilyawar V, Sarkar S, Lakshminarayanan S, Cintron C, Babu SP, Knudsen S, Joseph NM, Horsburgh CR, Sinha P, Ellner JJ, Narasimhan PB, Johnson WE, Hochberg NS, Salgame P. Corrigendum: Malnutrition leads to increased inflammation and expression of tuberculosis risk signatures in recently exposed household contacts of pulmonary tuberculosis. Front Immunol. 2022; 13:1064883. PMID: 36341454.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 9/29/2022
Kaipilyawar V, Zhao Y, Wang X, Joseph NM, Knudsen S, Prakash Babu S, Muthaiah M, Hochberg NS, Sarkar S, Horsburgh CR, Ellner JJ, Johnson WE, Salgame P. Development and Validation of a Parsimonious Tuberculosis Gene Signature Using the digital NanoString nCounter Platform. Clin Infect Dis. 2022 Sep 29; 75(6):1022-1030. PMID: 35015839.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 9/28/2022
VanValkenburg A, Kaipilyawar V, Sarkar S, Lakshminarayanan S, Cintron C, Prakash Babu S, Knudsen S, Joseph NM, Horsburgh CR, Sinha P, Ellner JJ, Narasimhan PB, Johnson WE, Hochberg NS, Salgame P. Malnutrition leads to increased inflammation and expression of tuberculosis risk signatures in recently exposed household contacts of pulmonary tuberculosis. Front Immunol. 2022; 13:1011166. PMID: 36248906.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 9/10/2022
Sinha P, Lakshminarayanan SL, Cintron C, Narasimhan PB, Locks LM, Kulatilaka N, Maloomian K, Prakash Babu S, Carwile ME, Liu AF, Horsburgh CR, Acuna-Villaorduna C, Linas BP, Hochberg NS. Nutritional Supplementation Would Be Cost-Effective for Reducing Tuberculosis Incidence and Mortality in India: The Ration Optimization to Impede Tuberculosis (ROTI-TB) Model. Clin Infect Dis. 2022 Sep 10; 75(4):577-585. PMID: 34910141.
Read at: PubMed
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