Martin Burke is the May and Ving Lee Professor for Chemical Innovation at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He is the founding Director of the Molecular Maker Lab and a co-founder of the Molecule Maker Lab Institute. He also helped launch the Carle Illinois College of Medicine and served as its inaugural Associate Dean of Research.
Burke discovered chemistry that machines can do. His lab specifically pioneered the modular synthesis of small molecules with MIDA/TIDA boronate building blocks, an approach that is friendly to automation, non-specialists, and AI. More than 300 of these building blocks are now commercially available, and they have been used by hundreds of other labs worldwide to help identify many different types of natural products, pharmaceuticals, herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, diagnostic probes, catalysts, anti-corrosive coatings, quantum dots, carbohydrate sensors, and a wide range of materials, collectively yielding >1000 publications including >300 patents. In his own lab, Burke leveraged this modular chemistry approach to develop the field of molecular prosthetics, yielding new drug candidates for cystic fibrosis and anemia, define the sterol sponge mechanism by which glycosylated polyene macrolide natural products kill eukaryotic cells, which led to renal sparing antifungal candidates for treating invasive fungal infections, and to enable AI-guided closed-loop discovery of top-in-class organic lasers and mechanistic insights underlying the stability of organophotovoltaic materials. Leveraging the broad potential of this modular approach, Burke (co)-founded multiple biotechnology companies, including REVOLUTION Medicines, Sfunga Therapeutics (now Elion Therapeutics), and cystetic Medicines, that have collectively advanced 7 drug candidates into clinical trials.
Burke is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and American Society for Clinical Investigation, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is also a winner of the ACS Cope Scholar Award, Elias J. Corey Award in Organic Synthesis, Hirata Gold Medal, Mukaiyama Award, Presidential Medallion from the University of Illinois, and Nobel Laureate Signature Award for Graduate Education in Chemistry.