In the past seven years the size of the known protein sequence universe has been rapidly expanding. At present, more then five million entries are included in the UniProtKB/TrEMBL protein database. In this context, a retrospective evaluation of recent X-ray absorption studies is undertaken to assess its potential role in metalloproteomics. Metalloproteomics is the structural and functional characterization of metal-binding proteins. This is a new area of active research which has particular relevance to biology and for which X-ray absorption spectroscopy is ideally suited. In the last three years, biological X-ray absorption spectroscopy (BioXAS) has been included among the techniques used in post-genomics initiatives for metalloprotein characterization. The emphasis of this review is on the progress in BioXAS that has emerged from recent meetings in 2007-2008. Developments required to enable BioXAS studies to better contribute to metalloproteomics throughput are also discussed. Overall, this paper suggests that X-ray absorption spectroscopy could have a higher impact on metalloproteomics, contributing significantly to the understanding of metal site structures and of reaction mechanisms for metalloproteins.