University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Martin D. Burke, PhD, MD
May and Ving Lee Professor for Chemical Innovation
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Dr. Martin Burke is the May and Ving Lee Professor for Chemical Innovation at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the founding Director of the Molecular Maker Lab and co-founder of the Molecule Maker Lab Institute at UIUC. He also helped launch the Carle Illinois College of Medicine and served as its inaugural Associate Dean for Research.
Burke’s lab pioneered the development of molecular prosthetics for cystic fibrosis, anemia, and neurodegeneration, and other difficult to treat diseases caused by loss of protein function. His group also illuminated how the inherent robustness of living systems can interface with imperfect molecular prosthetics to restore physiology. These advances were driven by his lab’s iterative lego-like platform for small molecule synthesis. This new modular brand of organic chemistry has been automated and used by hundreds of labs worldwide to produce many different natural products, pharmaceuticals and materials. It has also been coupled to artificial intelligence to enable closed-loop discovery of a wide range of new molecular functions and is beginning to democratize molecular innovation.
Burke is a scientific founder of four biotechnology companies which have yielded six drug candidates in clinical trials. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and American Society for Clinical Investigation, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is also a winner of the ACS Cope Scholar Award, Hirata Gold Medal, Mukaiyama Award, and Nobel Laureate Signature Award for Graduate Education in Chemistry.
W07--Agnostic Avenues: Alternatives to CF Gene Therapy
Thursday, October 23, 2025
10:15 AM - 12:15 PM PDT