{"id":18216,"date":"2022-03-06T17:09:34","date_gmt":"2022-03-06T22:09:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/ppb\/?post_type=profile&p=18216"},"modified":"2025-10-07T13:34:02","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T17:34:02","slug":"david-h-farb-ph-d","status":"publish","type":"profile","link":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/ppb\/profile\/david-h-farb-ph-d\/","title":{"rendered":"David H. Farb, Ph.D."},"content":{"rendered":"

Principal\u00a0Investigator,\u00a0Laboratory of Molecular Neurobiology<\/span><\/a><\/h4>\n

David H. Farb, Ph.D., was appointed Professor and Chairman of the Department of Pharmacology & Experimental Therapeutics at Boston University (BU) Medical Campus on July 1, 1990.\u00a0 After founding the NIGMS Training Program in BioMolecular Pharmacology at BU, and 26 years of continuous funding from NIGMS, Dr. Farb decided to return to research to pursue his interests in neural-circuitry-level drug discovery. He stepped down from the department chair position on December 15, 2022, and continues to work full-time in research and teaching. He has also served as a member of the Drug Development Work Group of Mass Insight, co-author of the Massachusetts Technology Road Map for Drug Discovery, and a consultant for a number of small to large pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and patent litigation companies. For the past 9 years he has represented the academic community of Massachusetts as an expert in clinical pharmacology on the Board of Pharmacy\u2019s Licensure Advisory Committee and the Sub Committee on Adverse Events in the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.<\/span><\/p>\n

As head of the Laboratory of Molecular Neurobiology, he focuses on the identification of pharmacological treatments for disorders of learning and memory function. His research integrates existing electrophysiological, behavioral, pharmacological, and molecular genetic technologies in a novel systems-level platform for assessing the impact of cognitive enhancers such as neuroactive steroids upon fundamental hippocampal systems for pattern separation (encoding), and pattern completion (retrieval), that are believed to be essential for cognition in all mammals, including man. Deficits in aspects of episodic memory dependent on hippocampal function are evident in a variety of mental disorders, including schizophrenia, autism, Alzheimer\u2019s Disease, and normal aging. Existing pharmacotherapies are limited and carry substantial risk of adverse effects.<\/p>\n

The Laboratory of Molecular Neurobiology has a strong history of using a multidisciplinary approach that includes electrophysiological techniques combined with classic behavioral and molecular biological methods to investigate the mechanisms and modalities of novel therapeutics and advance the treatment of disorders and diseases of the nervous system.<\/p>\n

In search of more effective approaches to drug discovery, high-density in vivo<\/em> electrophysiological recordings in awake freely behaving rats are presently being used in the Farb Laboratory to identify changes in hippocampal function that underlie cognitive deficits due to aging and disease and, to assess for the functional neural network correlates associated with effective therapeutics. Dr. Farb and the Laboratory of Molecular Neurobiology are among the researchers and laboratories that comprise the Boston University Center for Systems Neuroscience<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The use of nanoparticles encapsulating hydrophilic or hydrophobic molecules is being explored for delivery of drugs across the blood brain barrier. Nanoparticle composition is being engineered to facilitate better delivery of drugs to specific target sites. Neuroactive drugs and proteins, biomarkers for novel diagnostics, sensitive dyes for neural mapping, and many other applications of nanoparticles are envisioned. The major advantage of this technique is the noninvasive delivery of molecules to the CNS via a peripheral injection.<\/p>\n

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Lab Page<\/a><\/span><\/h3>\n

Publications<\/span><\/a><\/h3>\n

Professional Background<\/h3>
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Prior to joining BU, Dr. Farb was a Fogarty Senior International Fellow (1989 \u2013 1990) with Sydney Brenner, PhD in the Molecular Genetics Unit at the Medical Research Council, Cambridge University, UK. Dr. Farb received his B.A. in Chemistry from Long Island University, where he was President of the American Chemical Society chapter and received honors including the American Institute of Chemists Award. He received the Ph.D. in Biochemistry (enzyme mechanisms\/bioorganic chemistry) with William P. Jencks, M.D. at Brandeis University. After completing postdoctoral fellowships at Harvard Medical School in Pharmacology with Gerald D. Fischbach, M.D. and in Physiology with Susan E. Leeman, Ph.D., he became Assistant Professor of Anatomy and Cell Biology at the SUNY Downstate Medical Center. Dr. Farb was promoted to full professor with tenure, Head of the Molecular Pharmacology Research Program, and elected Presiding Officer of the Graduate School at SUNY. While in New York, Dr. Farb was elected Chair of the Section of Biological Sciences at the New York Academy of Sciences, where he subsequently founded the Section of Neuroscience. Dr. Farb has served as a consultant to large and small pharmaceutical companies, intellectual property law and portfolio investment firms. Dr. Farb was a member of the founding Scientific Advisory Boards of CoCensys and DOV Pharmaceuticals. He holds 9 issued U.S. patents, one patent issued in Australia, and one issued in Japan. Dr. Farb pioneered development of technology for high throughput electrophysiology and was the Scientific Founder of Scion Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Wyeth), which commercialized his patents on high throughput electrophysiology and small molecule modulators of amino acid receptors. High throughput electrophysiology is currently in use throughout the pharmaceutical industry for ion channel and receptor directed drug discovery.<\/p>\n

As a postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Farb, in collaboration with Dr. Dennis W. Choi and Dr. Gerald D. Fischbach, co-discovered the cellular mechanisms of action of benzodiazepines\u2014the class of anxiolytics, sedative hypnotics, and anticonvulsants that includes trade-name drugs such as Xanax, Valium, and Versed. This research showed that benzodiazepines acted by positive allosteric modulation of the type-A GABA receptor (Nature (1977) 269: 342-344<\/a>). Dr. Farb\u2019s research program focused on the turnover and regulation of GABA receptor function (Science (1984) 226: 857) as a nexus for the control of nervous system function. Dr. Farb\u2019s current research is directed toward the discovery and development of neuromodulators as therapeutic agents and on the structure, function, and cellular dynamics of ion channels and receptors in the brain and spinal cord. Ongoing studies are directed toward understanding the mechanisms of action of abused substances and steroid modulators and their interactions with excitatory and inhibitory amino acid receptors in the central nervous system (PNAS (1997) 94: 10450; Science Signaling (2000) 60: PE1;\u00a0PNAS (2004) 101: 8198). Dr. Farb\u2019s laboratory demonstrated that pregnanolone hemisuccinate inhibits reinstatement of cocaine seeking behavior, and this compound has been selected by NIDA for preclinical development in its Medications Development Program. \u00a0 The laboratory has recently shown that picomolar concentrations of the neurosteroid pregnenolone sulfate modulate signal transduction pathways implicated in learning and memory function (Mol. Pharm.\u00a02014 Oct;86(4):390-8.<\/a>). \u00a0The laboratory is currently using in vivo<\/em> electrophysiology<\/a> to investigate the how cognitive enhancers including modulate neural network activity in freely behaving rodent models of age related cognitive impairment\u00a0(<\/span>Hippocampus,<\/span>\u00a02015<\/a>) and Alzheimer\u2019s disease (<\/span>Heliyon, 2021<\/a>).<\/span><\/p>\n

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Recent News<\/h3>
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