greatly improved timescales. The computational cost of exact versions of the algorithm is determined by the coupling class of the reaction network. In weakly coupled networks, the number of reactions that is influenced by any other reaction is bounded by a small constant. In strongly coupled networks, a single reaction firing can in principle affect all other reactions. An exact version of the algorithm with constant-time scaling for weakly coupled networks has been developed, enabling efficient simulation of systems with very large numbers of reaction channels (Slepoy Thompson Plimpton 2008). The generalized Gillespie algorithm that accounts for the non-Markovian properties of random biochemical events with delay has been developed by Bratsun et al. 2005 and independently Barrio et al. 2006, as well as (Cai 2007). See the articles cited below for details. Partial-propensity formulations, as developed independently by both Ramaswamy et al. (2009, 2010) and Indurkhya and Beal (2010), are available to construct a family of exact versions of the algorithm whose computational cost is proportional to the number of chemical species in the network, rather than the (larger) number of reactions. These formulations can reduce the computational cost to constant-time scaling for weakly coupled networks and to scale at most linearly with the number of species for strongly coupled networks. A partial-propensity variant of the generalized Gillespie algorithm for reactions with delays has also been proposed (Ramaswamy Sbalzarini 2011). The use of partial-propensity methods is limited to elementary chemical reactions, i.e., reactions with at most two different reactants. Every non-elementary chemical reaction can be equivalently decomposed into a set of elementary ones, at the expense of a linear (in the order of the reaction) increase in network size. Examples Reversible binding of A and B to form AB dimers A simple example may help to explain how the Gillespie algorithm works. Consider a system of molecules of two types, and . In this system, and reversibly bind together to form dimers such that two reactions are possible: either A and B react reversibly to form an dimer, or an dimer dissociates into and . The reaction rate constant for a given single A molecule reacting with a given single molecule is , and the reaction rate for an dimer breaking up is . If at time t there is one molecule of each type then the rate of dimer formation is , while if there are molecules of type