title: Non-essential metals in chemical biology.
abstract: Metal ions and compounds are essential to life and many people routinely take them as food supplements in the form of vitamin and mineral pills. Most non-essential metals are considered to be toxic, nevertheless, many are widely used in imaging, diagnostics and medicine. This short  review provides an overview from selected examples of the on-going research within my laboratory that uses metal compounds to either understand biological processes or that exhibit therapeutic properties overcoming the limitations of existing chemotherapies.
authors.affiliation: Institut des Sciences et Ingénierie Chimiques, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland. paul.dyson@epfl.ch
authors.forename: Paul J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Dyson
mesh_terms: D001695:Biology; D008670:Metals / Q000378:metabolism*; D018613:Microscopy, Confocal; D008856:Microscopy, Fluorescence; D008958:Models, Molecular; D011487:Protein Conformation; D011506:Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D008670:Metals; D011506:Proteins