The Cell Biology of Metals Gordon Conference provides a forum for an emerging field, encompassing the uptake, distribution and use of metals in cells and organelles. Metals are taken up across membranes and are directed to various cellular destinations, ultimately finding their way into the correct metalloproteins. Intricate mechanisms control uptake, distribution, trafficking, and insertion into proteins. Transporters, chelators, metal cofactors, protein folding chaperones, metallochaperones, transcription factors and translation regulators are involved. The level of complexity equals that of the protein trafficking pathways that are being characterized by modern methods of cell biology. An important objective is to understand how protein trafficking pathways and metal trafficking pathways are integrated and intersect. Other areas of focus are mechanisms of metal ion homeostasis, how cells sense diverse metal ions, and how homeostatic mechanisms for different metal ions are interconnected. Cellular malfunction (or disease) results if any of the various key steps in metal homeostasis are perturbed. The sessions are organized according to cell structure, cutting across metals (Fe, Cu, Zn, Mo) and evolutionary categories.