9507407 Suarez It is important, if one is to understand the nature of physiological and biochemical processes, the manner in which they are regulated, how they might go wrong under pathological conditions, to have a fundamental understanding of the rules that govern functional design. At the level of the whole animal, the understanding of why humans and various species of animals might have so much lung, or heart, or intestine, and how the functional capacities of these organs relate to maximum physiological requirements is increasing. This approach to the analysis of design has not been adopted in studies of the design of metabolic pathways. By examining maximum rates of metabolism in muscles and by comparing these maximum rates with the capacities of the biochemical systems that make them possible, Dr. Suarez hopes to gain valuable insights into how metabolism actually works and is regulated in exercising muscles as well as into the rules of nature regarding the relationships between biochemical design and physiological performance. ***
