Dr. Michael Cox

Dr. Michael Cox is a molecular and cellular biologist who earned his PhD in Biochemistry from the University of North Carolina for studies on how oncogenes impact neuronal growth and differentiation. He began his work on cell signaling networks in prostate cancer at the University of Virginia. His research program is dedicated to understanding how prostate cancer, the most frequently diagnosed male malignancy, initiates and progresses and to finding ways of halting advanced disease progression.

Dr. Cox’s research is funded by the Terry Fox Foundation, Canadian Cancer Society, the VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation and the Prostate Cancer Foundation of British Columbia. His work focuses on early genetic changes in prostate cells, how resulting tumor cells respond to growth factors in the presence or absence of testosterone and how these cellular changes allow prostate tumor cells to utilize these growth factors to aid development of testosterone independence. With colleagues at the Vancouver Prostate Centre and University of British Columbia, he is developing combinatorial antisense and small molecule drug strategies that decrease the responsiveness of tumor cells to growth factors and has shown that prostate cancer cells treated in this way are more sensitive to testosterone deprivation or treatment with other chemotherapies. These are first steps in developing effective treatments for patients with advanced prostate cancer.