MCP Simple PubMed

An MCP server that provides access to PubMed articles through the Entrez API.

Features

• Search PubMed database using keywords
• Access article abstracts
• Download full text when available (for open access articles) not implemented yet!

Installation

pip install mcp-simple-pubmed

Configuration

The server requires the following environment variables:

• PUBMED_EMAIL: Your email address (required by NCBI)
• PUBMED_API_KEY: Optional API key for higher rate limits

The standard rate limit is 3 requests / second. No rate limiting was implemented, as it is highly unlikely in the typical usage scenario that your AI would generate more traffic. If you need it, you can register for an API key which will give you 10 requests / second. Read about this on NCBI pages.

Usage with Claude Desktop

Add to your Claude Desktop configuration (claude_desktop_config.json):

(Mac OS)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "simple-pubmed": {
      "command": "python",
      "args": ["-m", "mcp_simple_pubmed"],
      "env": {
        "PUBMED_EMAIL": "your-email@example.com",
        "PUBMED_API_KEY": "your-api-key" 
      }
    }
  }
}

(Windows)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "simple-pubmed": {
      "command": "C:\\Users\\YOUR_USERNAME\\AppData\\Local\\Programs\\Python\\Python311\\python.exe",
      "args": [
        "-m",
        "mcp_simple_pubmed"
      ],
      "env": {
        "PUBMED_EMAIL": "your-email@example.com",
        "PUBMED_API_KEY": "your-api-key" 
      }
    }
  }
}

License

MIT License