The Cell Biology of Metals Gordon Conference provides a highly interactive forum that allows junior and senior investigators alike to learn of recent advances in our understanding of metal homeostasis in cells, between cells and within organisms. The molecular mechanisms of how essential metal ions are acquired from the immediate environment, how cells respond to a changing landscape of metal availability and how these metals are utilized are central to the 2011 Cell Biology of Metals Gordon Conference. This conference will present the latest breakthroughs in the cell, molecular and structural biology of metal ion sensing, trafficking, and transport. Highlights of this conference include a discussion of how misregulation of metal homeostasis and utilization underscores human disease and how bacterial pathogens function to exploit the metal ion landscape to enhance virulence in humans. Other sessions include a discussion of the next generation technologies to quantify total and bioavailable metals within cells and organisms, the interplay of metals, oxidative stress and sulfur metabolism, and metal allocation in plants as revealed by genome-wide metallomics and ionomics. Oral presentations will be given by both new and established leaders in the field from bioinorganic chemists, to mass spectrometrists to structural and cell biologists, as well as by speakers selected from poster presentations, that cut across multiple metals of biological significance.