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George I. Zahalak, Eng.ScD., professor of mechanical engineering and biomedical engineering, has received a singular honor: A fundamental equation in the molecular theory of muscle contraction has been named the "Huxley-Zahalak Equation," for him and Sir Andrew Fielding Huxley.
Authors Marcello Epstein and Walter Herzog named the equation for Huxley and Zahalak in their book, "Theoretical Models of Skeletal Muscle: Biological and Mathematical Considerations," published by John Wiley and Sons, New York.
Huxley shared a Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1963 for work he did with collaborators on the transmission of neural signals. According to Zahalak, Huxley is perhaps best known in biomedical and engineering sciences for the Hodgkin-Huxley Equations, which made possible a detailed quantitative understanding of neural conduction based on sound biophysical data.
"For the last 40 years, Huxley has concentrated on the molecular mechanisms of muscle contraction and published a first version of his mathematical theory in a now-classic paper in 1957," Zahalak said. "That paper contained a simplified version of what Epstein and Herzog have dubbed the 'Huxley-Zahalak Equation.' That version is valid only for steady-state conditions, whereas the equation to which they appended my name holds for arbitrary, time-varying conditions."
Put simply, the "Huxley-Zahalak Equation" models quantitatively the interaction between the proteins actin and myosin; this interaction is the basis for the mechanical work of skeletal muscle and other tissues.
Zahalak said that he uses the equation in a simplified form in an undergraduate biomedical engineering course in quantitative physiology; graduate students get a more extensive discussion of it in a course focusing on muscle mechanics and contractility. He will introduce the equation this spring in a new course on cell and tissue engineering that he is teaching with Elliot L. Elson, Ph.D., professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics.
Huxley has an impressive lineage. His grandfather was Tomas Henry Huxley, who was the most prominent defender of Charles Darwin and the theory of evolution during Victorian times. And he is the half-brother of Julian Huxley, a famous English biologist, and writer and author Aldous Huxley.
The association with Huxley in the equation is gratifying for Zahalak, who has been a faculty member here since 1976.
"Recognition of one's contributions is the coin of the realm in academic science and engineering," Zahalak said. "It's a substitute for stock options or medals in other professions. I don't know to what extent other members of the muscle mechanics research community associate this equation with my name, but perhaps the publicity arising from the book may help the connection to catch on."
