American Cancer Society scientists project that approximately 33,330 men will die from prostate cancer in America in 2020. The majority of these deaths are due to the development of advanced stage castration-resistant disease, which typically progresses to bone metastatic prostate cancer.

In this conversation, two-time American Cancer Society grantee Leah Cook, PhD, talks us through the problem of bone metastatic prostate cancer. Why is it so hard to treat? What is happening inside the bones? And why is she excited about recent discoveries made in her lab?

Leah Cook, PhD, is Assistant Professor in the Department of Pathology and Microbiology at the Univ. of Nebraska Medical Center.

3:36 - Where in the body does prostate cancer most frequently go when it moves?

4:49 – How many men with prostate cancer will experience bone metastatic disease?

5:52 – On how bone metastatic prostate cancer is treated

8:30 – On what happens to bones when prostate cancer cells invade

10:32 – On why immune cells are present in bone cells

12:11 – On how her lab is trying to understand what happens to immune cells in bones that have been invaded by prostate cancer

13:52 – Why don’t immune cells in the bone recognize and kill bone metastatic prostate cancer cells?

19:23 – How could the work of her lab change how we treat metastatic prostate cancer?

21:48 – What she’s most excited about in her research

23:42 – The role of ACS funding in her career

25:11 – A message she’d like to share with cancer survivors and caregivers

27:32 – On health equity issues in metastatic prostate cancer, especially among African American men