Description:
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>The design of an experiment for the determination of binding parameters in the association between a ligand and a macromolecule with two groups of non‐interacting binding sites is proposed. In the Gauss–Newton non‐linear least squares treatment the standard deviation of each parameter is given as the product of two terms: one depending on the experimental error and the other, the diagonal element of the dispersion matrix, depending only on the independent variables of the system. In order to reach an optimal experimental design, these diagonal elements of the information matrix have to be minimized. In our approach this is achieved by searching those values of the independent variable which maximize the determinant of the information matrix. Furthermore, the limits of validity of the model are deduced from an analysis of the diagonal elements of the information matrix obtained under optimal conditions.</jats:p>