Natasha S. Hochberg MD, MPH
Associate Professor, Infectious Diseases
Director, Global Health
715 Albany St | (617) 638-7781natasha.hochberg@bmc.org
nhoch@bu.edu
Sections
Infectious Diseases
Centers
Evans Center for Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research
Biography
Natasha Hochberg, MD, MPH is Volunteer Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine (Section of Infectious Diseases) at the Boston University Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine. She sees travelers and patients with tropical diseases in the Center for a infectious Diseases, with a particular focus on Chagas disease and other parasitic infections. Dr. Hochberg previously worked full-time at BU/BMC, but now her primary position is Director, Global Health Translational Medicine at Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research.
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 research focuses on tropical diseases. Particularly, she has studied the impact of malnutrition and parasitic disease on tuberculosis (TB), tropical diseases in immigrant populations, and preventing diseases in international travelers. She was 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 was 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 aimed 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 was co-investigator of an R01 studying TB in pregnancy in IndiA and the 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.
Previously, she was the co-director of the travel clinic at Boston Medical Center (BMC) and Dire tor of Tropical Medicine. She served as the co-site director for GeoSentinel, an international surveillance system of diseases in travelers and migrants, and participated 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 President for the Clinical Group, and previously served as a member of the Scientific Program Committee, a clinical group councilor, and as the Chair for the Subcommittee on Pneumonia, Respiratory Infections and TB.
Dr. Hochberg taught courses at BU School of Public Health on Infectious Disease Epidemiology (EP755) and Outbreak Investigations (EP800).
Education
Medicine, MD, Case School of Medicine
Public Health, MPH, Emory University
Classics, BA, Harvard University
Publications
Prakash Babu S, Ezhumalai K, Raghupathy K, Karoly M, Chinnakali P, Gupte N, Paradkar M, Devarajan A, Dhanasekaran M, Thiruvengadam K, Dauphinais MR, Gupte AN, Shivakumar SB, Thangakunam B, Christopher DJ, Viswanathan V, Mave V, Gaikwad S, Kinikar A, Kornfeld H, Horsburgh CR, Chandrasekaran P, Hochberg NS, Salgame P, Gupta A, Roy G, Ellner J, Sinha P, Sarkar S. Factors Associated With Unfavorable Treatment Outcomes Among Persons With Pulmonary Tuberculosis: A Multicentric Prospective Cohort Study From India. Clin Infect Dis. 2024 Oct 15; 79(4):1034-1038. PMID: 38991034.
Published on 6/20/2024Wang X, VanValkenberg A, Odom AR, Ellner JJ, Hochberg NS, Salgame P, Patil P, Johnson WE. Comparison of gene set scoring methods for reproducible evaluation of tuberculosis gene signatures. BMC Infect Dis. 2024 Jun 20; 24(1):610. PMID: 38902649.
Published on 6/18/2024Wheelock A, Sandhu S, Reifler K, Carrion M, Bourque DL, Hamer DH, Hochberg NS. Improving Clinician Awareness of and Screening for Chagas Disease with an Educational Intervention. Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2024 Aug 07; 111(2):380-386. PMID: 38889732.
Published on 1/19/2024Reifler KA, Wheelock A, Hall SM, Salazar A, Hassan S, Bostrom JA, Barnett ED, Carrion M, Hochberg NS, Hamer DH, Gopal DM, Bourque D. Chagas cardiomyopathy in Boston, Massachusetts: Identifying disease and improving management after community and hospital-based screening. PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 2024 Jan; 18(1):e0011913. PMID: 38241361.
Published on 10/9/2023Hochberg NS, Rao SPS, Angyalosi G, Zhao X, Carballo L, Demacq C, Braud-Perez S, Wieser D, Casas JP, Millholland J, Ngo D. An end is in sight: a perspective on PCR as an endpoint for Chagas disease treatment trials. Front Parasitol. 2023; 2:1272386. PMID: 39816827.
Published on 8/28/2023Kalva 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). 2023 Aug 28; 45(3):545-552. PMID: 36451280.
Published on 6/21/2023Buonomo G, Acuña-Villaorduna C, Poongothai V, Dharmalingam M, Cintron C, Dauphinais M, Babu SP, Locks LM, Sarkar S, Salgame P, Hochberg NS, Lakshminaryanan S, Narasimhan PB, Sinha P. A micro-costing analysis of nutritional support for persons with TB and their families in India. Public Health Action. 2023 Jun 21; 13(2):34-36. PMID: 37359061.
Published on 6/14/2023Barathi A, Krishnamoorthy Y, Sinha P, Horsburgh C, Hochberg N, Johnson E, Salgame P, Govindarajan S, Senbagavalli PB, Lakshinarayanan S, Roy G, Ellner J, Sarkar S. Effect of treatment adherence on the association between sex and unfavourable treatment outcomes among tuberculosis patients in Puducherry, India: a mediation analysis. J Public Health (Oxf). 2023 Jun 14; 45(2):304-311. PMID: 35692180.
Published on 6/14/2023Krishnamoorthy Y, Ezhumalai K, Murali S, Rajaa S, Majella MG, Sarkar S, Lakshminarayanan S, Joseph NM, Soundappan G, Prakash Babu S, Horsburgh C, Hochberg N, Johnson WE, Knudsen S, Pentakota SR, Salgame P, Roy G, Ellner J. Development of prognostic scoring system for predicting 1-year mortality among pulmonary tuberculosis patients in South India. J Public Health (Oxf). 2023 Jun 14; 45(2):e184-e195. PMID: 36038507.
Published on 6/8/2023Hochberg NS, Dinculescu VV, Nutman TB. Case 17-2023: A 58-Year-Old Woman with Fatigue, Abdominal Bloating, and Eosinophilia. N Engl J Med. 2023 Jun 08; 388(23):2180-2189. PMID: 37285529.
Media Mentions
Published on 3/25/2021
It's Spring Break. Should We Be Traveling?
Published on 12/29/2020
Why Do Obese People Have Higher Risk From COVID-19?
Published on 12/16/2020
Poor outcome for patients with COVID-19 and obesity not driven by inflammation
Published on 9/30/2020
Health Affairs Blog Discusses Impact Of Undernutrition On TB
Published on 5/12/2020
Antibody Tests Could Lead to Job Discrimination and Encourage Workers to Play 'Russian Roulette'
Published on 4/16/2020
Published on 4/8/2020
How are Hospitals Preparing for the Coronavirus Peak? Yahoo News Explains
Published on 4/6/2020
What to Know About the Survival Rate of Coronavirus
Published on 3/20/2020
Is The Novel Coronavirus Deadly? A Doctor Explains The COVID-19 Mortality Rate
Published on 3/17/2020
Special Two Hour Broadcast: How Children And Families Are Coping With The Impacts Of Coronavirus
View full list of 13 media mentions.