- May and Ving Lee Professor for Chemical Innovation
- Director of the Molecule Maker Lab.
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 C–C bond formation and universal catch-and-release purification. The discovery that TIDA boronates are more than 1,000-fold more stable than their 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 blocc building blocks are now commercially available and have been used by hundreds of laboratories worldwide to synthesize pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, and advanced materials—yielding more than 1,000 publications and 300 patents.
In his own lab, Burke has applied blocc chemistry to develop molecular prosthetics, generating new therapeutic candidates for cystic fibrosis and anemia, discovering renal-sparing antifungals, and driving AI-guided discovery of novel organic materials.