ABSTRACT
Cellular metabolism is an intricate and highly evolved chemical network that allows a cell or organism to extract and utilize material from its environment to make useful products including primary metabolites, secondary metabolites, and high-energy molecules. The study of the metabolic capabilities of different cells has been an active area of inquiry for many years. Recently, the field of Metabolic Engineering has evolved, which allows for (a) the quantitative modeling and characterization of metabolic networks, and (b) the engineering of metabolic networks to bring about a desired new goal. Metabolic engineering was originally developed and applied for use in prokaryotic systems, but recently it has been increasingly applied to eukaryotic systems and problems of biomedical interest.
