Background. The study of nanofluid gains interest of researchers because of its uses in treatment of cancer, wound treatment, fuel reserves, and elevating the particles in the bloodstream to a tumour. This artefact investigates the magnetohydrodynamic flow of Burgers nanofluid with the interaction of nonlinear thermal radiation, activation energy, and motile microorganisms across a stretching cylinder. Method. The developed partial differential equations (PDEs) are transformed into a structure of ODEs with the help of similarity transformation. The extracted problem is rectified numerically by using the bvp4c program in computational software MATLAB. The novelty of analysis lies in the fact that the impacts of bioconvection with magnetic effects on Burgers nanofluid are taken into account. Moreover, the behaviours of thermal conductivity and diffusivity are discussed in detail. The impacts of activation energy and motile microorganism are also explored. No work has been published yet in the literature survey according to the authors’ knowledge. The current observation is the extension of Khan et al.’s work [51]. Results. The consequences of the relevant parameters, namely, thermophoresis parameter, Brownian motion parameter, the reaction parameter, temperature difference parameter, activation energy, bioconvection Lewis number and Peclet number against the velocity of Burgers nanofluid, temperature profile for nanoliquid, the concentration of nanoparticles, and microorganisms field, have been explored in depth. The reports had major impacts in the development of medications for the treatment of arterial diseases including atherosclerosis without any need for surgery, which may reduce spending on cardiovascular and postsurgical problems in patients. Conclusions. The current investigation depicts that fluid velocity increases for uplifting values of mixed convection parameter. Furthermore, it is analyzed that flow of fluid is risen by varying the amount of Burgers fluid parameter. The temperature distribution is escalated by escalating the values of temperature ratio parameter and thermal conductivity parameter. The concentration field turns down for elevated values of Lewis number and Brownian motion parameter, while conflicting circumstances are observed for the thermophoresis parameter and solutal Biot number. Larger values of Peclet number reduce the microorganism’s field. Physically the current model is more significant in the field of applied mathematics. Furthermore, the current model is more helpful to improve the thermal conductivity of base fluids and heat transfer rate.