There is no doubt that nowadays biology benefits greatly from mathematics. In particular
cellular biology is besides population dynamics a field where tech niques of mathematical
modeling are widely used. This is reflected by the large number of journal articles and
congress proceedings published every year on the dynamics of complex cellular processes. This
applies among others to metabolic control analysis where the number of articles on
theoretical fundamentals and experimental applications has increased for about 15 years.
Surprisingly mono graphs and textbooks dealing with the modeling of metabolic systems are
still exceptionally rare. We think that now time is ripe to fill this gap. This monograph
covers various aspects of the mathematical description of enzymatic systems such as
stoichiometric analysis enzyme kinetics dynamical simulation metabolic control analysis and
evolutionary optimization. We believe that at present these are the main approaches by which
metabolic systems can be analyzed in mathematical terms. Although stoichiometric analysis and
enzyme kinetics are classical fields tracing back to the beginning of our century there are
intriguing recent developments such as detection of elementary biochemical syn thesis routes
and rate laws for the situation of metabolic channeling which we have considered worth being
included. Evolutionary optimization of metabolic systems is a rather new field with promising
prospects. Its goal is to elucidate the structure and functions of these systems from an
evolutionary viewpoint.
