Marty Burke grew up in Manchester, Maryland and graduated in 1998 with a degree in chemistry from Johns Hopkins University. He then moved to Harvard Medical School as a PhD/MD student in the interdisciplinary Health Sciences and Technology program. From 1999-2003 Marty completed his thesis research in organic synthesis as an HHMI Graduate Fellow under the direction of Stuart Schreiber in the Department of Chemistry at Harvard University. Concurrently, Marty carried out collaborative studies with the laboratory of Christopher Walsh at HMS. Thereafter, he completed his clinical rotations as an NIH Fellow in the Medical Scientist Training Program and graduated from medical school in 2005.

That same year Marty began his independent career as an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research focuses on the synthesis and study of small molecules that perform protein-like functions. These types of molecules have the potential to serve as substitutes for missing or dysfunctional proteins that underlie human diseases, thereby operating as prostheses on the molecular scale. Moreover, these compounds may overcome some of the important limitations of conventional small molecule therapeutics that modulate specific macromolecular targets, such as the inherent vulnerability to resistance.To enable these studies, Marty's group is pioneering a synthesis strategy, dubbed iterative cross-coupling, that aims to make the process of complex small molecule synthesis as simple, efficient, and flexible as possible. The group is now harnessing the power of this chemistry to systematically dissect the structure/function relationships that underlie the protein-like activities of a variety of prototypical small molecules, including the channel-forming polyene natural product amphotericin B. Collectively, these efforts seek to build the foundation for the development of molecular prosthetics as a powerful and general strategy for the understanding and betterment of human health.

Marty is the recipient of a number of honors and awards, including an appointment to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute as an Early Career Scientist, the Beckman Young Investigator Award, a Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship, an NSF CAREER award, the Dreyfus Foundation New Faculty Award, the Bristol-Myers Squibb Unrestricted Research Grant, the Eli Lilly Grantee Award, the Amgen Young Investigator Award, the AstraZeneca Excellence in Chemistry Award, and he has been named one of the world's 35 top innovators under age 35. He has also been recognized multiple times as a "Teacher Ranked as Excellent" by the UIUC Center for Teaching Excellence..

A complete list of Marty’s publications and awards can be found on his current C.V.

For a biographical sketch of Marty as a "Scientist to Watch" in The Scientist magazine click here.