[2][3][4] Hofmeyr's doctoral research concerned the use of graphical patterns to elucidate chains of interaction in metabolic regulation, later published in the European Journal of Biochemistry,[5] and his collaboration with Kacser led to a study of the effect of moiety-conservation on control of pathways.
[6] At this time he and Cornish-Bowden were concerned that the development of metabolic control analysis seemed to be almost independent of the knowledge of metabolic regulation that had grown from the recognition of regulatory mechanisms in the 1950s and 1960s, most notably the importance of feedback inhibition[7][8][9][10] and cooperative behaviour of enzymes.
[11] This led them to propose a way of quantifying metabolic regulation,[12] the first of a series of publications that culminated in an analysis of the role of supply and demand in biochemical systems, i.e. an analysis of how negative feedback allow metabolic pathways to respond to changes in the demand for metabolites while resisting variations in the supply of starting materials.
[13] During the 21st century Hofmeyr has applied ideas of control analysis to ecosystems,[14] and to the understanding of the self-organization of cell function in the spirit of Robert Rosen.
His classic scores for lyrics of Hennie Aucamp and Etienne van Heerden have become standard items in Afrikaans popular music.