The 2013 Cell Biology of Metals Gordon Research Conference provides a highly interactive and collegial forum for junior and senior investigators alike to learn of the latest advances in our understanding of metal homeostasis, metabolism, and utilization in cells and organisms. The cell biology of metals is an emerging field of active research and this conference is the key venue for exciting unpublished work on nutrient metals (primarily iron, copper, zinc, and manganese), with presentations of research in humans and mice as well as plants, nematodes, and single-celled organisms. The meeting will bring together an outstanding and diverse group of molecular and structural biologists, biochemists, geneticists, cell biologists, and clinicians to bridge the gap between basic and applied research. Highlights include discussions of how dysregulation of metal homeostasis and utilization underscores human disease and how bacterial pathogens work to exploit host metal supplies to enhance their virulence in humans. Other sessions will address metalloproteomics and metallogenomics, intracellular metal trafficking, metal cofactor assembly, and metallosensor proteins and the regulation of gene expression. Oral presentations will be given by both new investigators and established leaders in the field and will be complemented by several poster sessions; some speakers will be selected from submitted poster abstracts. The broad and integrated coverage of topics will allow for extensive "cross-fertilization" of ideas among researchers studying metal nutrients from a multi-disciplinary perspective.