MCP Server

PubTator3 API compatible with the MCP agent protocol

Local serverstdioPython

What is the MCP MCP server?

Most database access work still happens through a UI a human drives. MCP MCP server moves it into the conversation instead. PubTator3 API compatible with the MCP agent protocol.

The short version

This project provides an async Python server for interacting with the PubTator3 API. It exposes multiple biomedical text-mining tools compatible with the MCP agent protocol, supporting tasks such as entity lookup, biomedical literature search, and text extraction from PubMed/PMC articles.

  • Entity Autocomplete: — Find biomedical entities (genes, diseases, chemicals, variants) using free-text queries
  • Literature Search: — Search the PubTator3 database using keywords, entity IDs, or entity relations
  • Article Retrieval: — Download and extract text from PubMed/PMC articles in multiple formats
  • Find Related Entities: — Query for entities related to a given identifier via customizable relation and type filters
  • Async and Fast: — Uses aiohttp for non-blocking HTTP requests; designed for integration into broader MCP environments

Getting it running

The server ships on PyPI as mcp-server-pubtator3, so your MCP client can launch it on demand — there is no separate build step. Add the server block to your client's configuration, restart it, and the tools register themselves.

How it compares

This sits in the database access group, where several servers overlap in what they claim to do but differ sharply once you actually set them up. It is maintained by Qingyuan Zhang; worth a glance at recent repository activity before you build anything load-bearing on it.

We check each listing at SyncDev against the project's documentation before it goes live — if something here drifts out of date, it is a bug worth reporting.

Things to watch

  • It runs with your machine's permissions. That is convenient and also the reason to think about what you point it at before you approve a tool call.
  • Keep per-call confirmation enabled while you learn its behaviour; it is the cheapest safeguard you have.

How to install the MCP MCP server

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "server-pubtator3": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["mcp-server-pubtator3"]
    }
  }
}

Add to claude_desktop_config.json, then restart Claude Desktop.

Frequently asked questions

It connects MCP to MCP-compatible AI assistants such as Claude and Cursor. Instead of copying data back and forth by hand, the assistant works with MCP directly.