Steve Jones refers to "Henry Kacsir, a mathematical biologist who... inspired generations of distinguished geneticists, but because he didn't publish much he'd probably be fired nowadays" ("My revolting past", June 4).
Kacser (pronounced "catcher", who was born in Romania) published quite a bit and very important it was, too (entirely presaging what is now known as systems biology).
His 1973 paper in which he set out the formalism known as Metabolic Control Analysis (MCA) has been cited over 1,000 times (see http:///dbk.ch.umist.ac.uk/mca_home.htm ).
Douglas Kell
EPSRC/RSC research chair in bioanalytical science
Umist