Computer Simulation of Biochemical Kinetics

The description of the kinetics of biochemical (and of course chemical) reactions can be made on two levels. At a basic, molecular, level a reacting chemical system can be described as an ensemble of particles that react on collision. Each pair of particles is assigned a probability for collision per unit time and volume. The evolution of the number of particles of each species is represented by a stochastic time series. At a macroscopic level, the various chemical species are represented by their concentrations in the reactor. The evolution of the various concentrations with the progress of reaction is described in terms of differential equations. These are partial differential equations if the spatial dimension (diffusion and convection processes) is taken into account, or ordinary ones if time is the only independent variable considered. Both these theoretical frameworks for the kinetics of chemical reactions were known before the appearance of computers. However their application to biochemical systems was quite limited.