Guy Brown asked: Now my question is "Is there already an MCA for
chemistry, and if not would it be useful?"
If anyone else has asked this question I would have answered that Guy's
own papers on molecular control analysis (as well as others from Hans
Westerhoff, and, some time ago, Bill Ray) already provided this, but
given that the question is from Guy he presumably means something more.
My feeling is that chemists already have the sort of tools they need to
answer the sort of questions they ask (which are not, on the whole the
same questions that biochemists ask -- have you ever looked at a book on
enzymes written by and for chemists?). In other words, I don't believe
that most chemists are very interested in knowing how much rate control
resides in each step. They may talk occasionally about rate-limiting
steps, but in general they are more interested in mechanism. Even some
biochemists think that investigating mechanism is the only valid reason
for studying kinetics at all. (I don't know if Gosta Pettersson looks at
this news group. Probably not, but if he does he will be saying YES YES
YES at this point). Of course, I don't agree with this, and think that
one of the great merits of metabolic control analysis is that it treats
mechanism as a black box. But I suspect that extremely few chemists will
see any virtue in treating mechanism as a black box, so I don't hold out
much hope that Guy's paper, if he writes it, will be received with much
warmth by a journal intended primarily for chemists.
Nothing to do with this, but Guy also wrote "(I do not know where all
these w-words came from)": I once saw a short play in which the *entire*
dialogue was in words beginning with w. A short sample that I happen to
remember: "We'll wed, William." "When, Wanda?", "Wednesday; where?"
"Welshpool". Not quite Shakespeare, I agree, but I doubt whether it
would even be possible to do this with any letter but w.
Athel
Home page: http://ir2lcb.cnrs-mrs.fr/lcbpage/athel/home_page.html
MCA FAQ: http://ir2lcb.cnrs-mrs.fr/lcbpage/athel/mcafaq.html
MCA chapter from my book:
http://ir2lcb.cnrs-mrs.fr/lcbpage/athel/fek10/mcai.html
