Grant: Canada Research Chairs

Metals have many roles in biology. Some, like copper and iron, are needed at trace levels for health. Others, such as mercury and lead have no known positive role but instead can behave as poisons. Many metals have dual roles. The metals chemical form or speciation is key to its role, whether toxic or beneficial, but is challenging to determine in biological tissues. This program will use and develop techniques available at the Canadian Light Source, located at the University of Saskatchewan, to investigate the speciation and microscopic distribution of metals, with impacts in the environment and human health.