Automated chemistry could build better drugs fast and cheap

Technology-driven systems may transform chemical synthesis

Automated chemistry apparatus

CHEMISTRY ON DEMAND  This mess of tubing and pumps snaps together molecules from chemical building blocks. Developer Martin Burke imagines the automated system freeing up chemists’ time to dream up the next blockbuster drug.

M. Burke/Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Mother Nature is a lazy chemist.