Stephen R. Farmer, PhD

Professor, Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine

Biography

Obesity has now reached pandemic proportions, resulting in dramatic increases in the occurrence of its associated disorders including diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Understanding the processes and metabolic perturbations that contribute to the expansion of adipose depots accompanying obesity is critical for the development of appropriate therapeutics. Expansion of white adipose (WAT) tissue depots particularly the intra-abdominal depots contribute to insulin resistance and inflammation that lead to type 2 diabetes, whereas brown adipose (BAT) resists expansion because it oxidizes lipids and, consequently, it is associated with an healthier phenotype. Our studies are focused on identifying the mechanisms regulating the formation and function of white and brown adipocytes (fat cells) using a variety of experimental approaches including overexpression and knock down of specific nuclear factors that we consider to be likely regulators of these processes in cells in culture as well as in mice. At present our focus is on nuclear factors that modulate the activity of the two principal regulators of adipogenesis (fat cell differentiation) peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARg) and CCAAT/enhancer binding proteins alpha, beta and delta (C/EBPs). We are particularly interested in identifying the factors regulating commitment of mesenchymal progenitors to the adipogenic lineage and are adopting a variety of approaches to achieve this goal, which includes gene profiling to discover novel regulators as well as investigating the role of selected candidate genes.

Publications

  • Published 10/1/2026

    Liew CW, Boucher J, Cheong JK, Vernochet C, Koh HJ, Mallol C, Townsend K, Langin D, Kawamori D, Hu J, Tseng YH, Hellerstein MK, Farmer SR, Goodyear L, Doria A, Blüher M, Hsu SI, Kulkarni RN. Author Correction: Ablation of TRIP-Br2, a regulator of fat lipolysis, thermogenesis and oxidative metabolism, prevents diet-induced obesity and insulin resistance. Nat Med. 2026 Oct; 32(10):3912. PMID: 42717037.

    Read at: PubMed

  • Published 5/9/2025

    Lotfollahzadeh S, Xia C, Amraei R, Hua N, Kandror KV, Farmer SR, Wei W, Costello CE, Chitalia V, Rahimi N. Corrigendum to "Inactivation of Minar2 in mice hyperactivates mTOR signaling and results in obesity" [Mol Metabol 73 (July 2023) 101744]. Mol Metab. 2025 Jul; 97:102160. PMID: 40345243.

    Read at: PubMed

  • Published 1/25/2025

    Dariolli R, Nir R, Mushlam T, Souza GR, Farmer SR, Batista ML. Optimized scaffold-free human 3D adipose tissue organoid culture for obesity and disease modeling. SLAS Discov. 2025 Mar; 31:100218. PMID: 39870353.

    Read at: PubMed

  • Published 2/5/2024

    Hu AJ, Li W, Dinh C, Zhang Y, Hu JK, Daniele SG, Hou X, Yang Z, Asara JM, Hu GF, Farmer SR, Hu MG. CDK6 inhibits de novo lipogenesis in white adipose tissues but not in the liver. Nat Commun. 2024 Feb 05; 15(1):1091. PMID: 38316780.

    Read at: PubMed

  • Published 9/18/2023

    Santos KBNH, Knobl P, Henriques F, Lopes MA, Franco FO, Bueno LL, Farmer SR, Batista ML. Pathological beige remodeling induced by cancer cachexia depends on the disease severity and involves mainly the trans-differentiation of mature white adipocytes. bioRxiv. 2023 Sep 18. PMID: 37781595.

    Read at: PubMed

View All 116 Publications:   View Full Profile in BUMC

Other Positions

  • Member, Evans Center for Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research
    Boston University
  • Graduate Medical Sciences Educator and Mentor (Primary Mentor of Graduate Students)
    Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, Graduate Medical Sciences
  • Member, Genome Science Institute
    Boston University

Websites

Education

  • National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR), PhD
  • University of Liverpool, BSc

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