Discovery of cisplatin as an effective anticancer agent has stimulated the development of metal based medicine. The recent advances in research on platinum, ruthenium and gold complexes have received much attention in medicinal chemistry, and studies of other less explored metal complexes may reveal alternative mode of mechanism as novel therapeutic agents. A series of dirhodium(II,II) complexes with carboxylate and carboxamidate ligands and thiourea complexes of coinage metals have been prepared in this study. Their biological activities and mechanisms of action have been studied. Dirhodium(II,II) carboxylate complexes with variations of alkyl and benzoyl side chains were synthesized and displayed remarkable cytotoxicities to cancer cells with potency down to submicromolar level. The cytotoxicities of rhodium complexes were found to significantly correlate with the cellular uptake of the rhodium complexes. As revealed by oligonucleotide microarray and bioinformatic analysis, the mode of action of the rhodium carboxylate complexes are highly similar to that of a proteasome inhibitor. Further cellular and biochemical studies showed that rhodium carboxylate complexes induced an accumulation of ubiquitinated proteins, inhibited the proteolytic activities of purified 20S proteasome and proteasomal deubiquitinating enzyme. These results corroborate that the impairment of the ubiquitin-proteasome system is linked to the cytotoxic action of rhodium carboxylate complexes. Silver is known to be an anti-inflammatory agent for topical treatment. A silver complex of N, N’-disubstituted cyclic thiourea that is reasonably stable towards reduced glutathionewas found to potently inhibit the NF-B transcriptional activity. Treatment of cells with silver thiourea inhibited TNF-α-stimulated IκB kinase activity, IκBα phosphorylation and degradation, nuclear translocation of NF-κB p65 and eventually the stimulated gene expression of inflammatory cytokines. Suppression of IκB kinase activity was associated with modification of sensitive cysteine residues and disruption of IκB kinase assembly. These data demonstrated that the inhibitory properties of Ag+ ions on an anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer drug target could be effectively delivered via the thiourea ligand. Silver is also an antimicrobial metal, and this study was also extended to understand the silver-bacteria interaction using a silver resistant bacteria as a model. Many silver resistant bacteria often produce considerable amount of silver particles when exposed to high concentrations of silver salts but the mechanism of biosynthesis is not well understood. A silver resistant E. coli that displays active silver efflux was shown to synthesize zero-valent silver nanoparticles in the periplasmic space through reduction of silver ions under anaerobic conditions. As the microbial c-type cytochromes are known to mediate respiratory metal reduction, their role in the biosynthesis of silver nanoparticles was examined. A deletion mutant of the cytoplasmic membrane-anchored tetra-heme c-type cytochrome subunit of periplasmic nitrate reductase (NapC) showed marked reduction of accumulation of silver nanoparticles. This study identified a molecular mechanism of biosynthesis of silver nanoparticles that may have implication in bioenvironmental processes and synthetic biology of metal nanomaterials. / published_or_final_version / Chemistry / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy