ABPL - A BIOCHEMICAL PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE

Computer analysis of biological systems, using approaches such as meta bolic control analysis is common. A typical example is a language like Herbert Sauto's SCAMP (Sauro & Fell, 1991), which allows simulations of enzyme systems, and calculation of control coefficients and elastic ities. However such systems are motivated by the underlying biochemica l theory and often have limitations as programming languages which mea n that they can only be applied to particular classes of problems. ABP L (a biochemical programming language) ''tends these ideas by adding a ll the facilities of a fully-fledged programming language, together wi th some of the capabilities of a modem computer algebra system. Syntac tically it derives from the programming language LISP, while the under lying functionality is that of iMAP, the successor to SCAMP. This prov ides us with a computer system capable of performing most of the tasks undertaken by existing packages, but more importantly, a system which can be easily extended into new areas. Key features of the work are: Ability to use the language both interactively and as a batch programm ing language Ability to work both symbolically and numerically Ability to handle matrices and vectors Ability to define and manipulate react ion schemes Common techniques are built in to the language Ability to add new operations to the language The implementation is in ANSI stand ard C for portability.