About
Closing the gap between potential and possible.
Small molecules—compounds built from carbon–carbon bonds—have immense potential to benefit society. Yet much of that transformative power remains untapped. Burke Lab aims to change that.
The challenge is access: only a fraction of the world’s eight billion imaginations can currently participate in small-molecule innovation. Blocc chemistry is an emerging solution, making chemistry friendly to machines, AI, and anyone—for faster breakthroughs and world-changing impact in medicine, energy, technology, and beyond.
PRINCIPLE INVESTIGATOR
Marty Burke
Martin D. Burke, M.D., Ph.D., is the May and Ving Lee Professor for Chemical Innovation at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), Founding Director of the Molecule Maker Lab, and Co-Founder of the Molecule Maker Lab Institute. He earned his B.A. in Chemistry from Johns Hopkins University, Ph.D. in Chemistry from Harvard University, and M.D. from the Health Sciences and Technology Program at Harvard Medical School and MIT. He also helped launch the Carle Illinois College of Medicine, serving as its inaugural Associate Dean for Research.
Burke pioneered blocc chemistry— iterative carbon–carbon bond formation that is friendly to machines, AI, and anyone. His lab developed MIDA and TIDA boronates to reversibly control boronic acid reactivity, enabling iterative carbon–carbon bond formation and universal catch-and-release purification. The discovery that TIDA boronates are over 1,000-fold more stable than MIDA counterparts expanded blocc chemistry to stereospecific Csp³–C bond formation and accelerated automated synthesis from days to hours.
His team also integrated blocc chemistry with AI, achieving the first example of closed-loop learning in organic synthesis. More than 300 of Burke’s molecular bloccs are now commercially available and have been used by hundreds of labs worldwide to synthesize pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, and advanced materials—yielding over 1,000 publications and 300 patents. In his own lab, Burke has applied blocc chemistry to develop molecular prosthetics, producing new therapeutic candidates for cystic fibrosis and anemia, to discover renal sparing antifungals, and to drive AI-guided discovery of novel organic materials.
Burke has co-founded five biotechnology companies—including Revolution Medicines, Sfunga Therapeutics (now Elion Therapeutics), Excelsior Sciences, Kinesid Therapeutics (acquired by Cajal Therapeutics), and cystetic Medicines—advancing seven drug candidates into clinical trials. Burke is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and the American Society of Clinical Investigation and is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has also received numerous honors, including the Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award, Elias J. Corey Award for Outstanding Original Contribution in Organic Synthesis by a Young Investigator, Nobel Laureate Signature Award in Graduate Education in Chemistry, and Mukaiyama Award, and the Presidential Medallion from UIUC, and has many times been recognized as a Teacher Ranked as Excellent at UIUC.