NIH RePORTER MCP

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for chatting with NIH RePORTER. Search for NIH-funded research projects and publications in a conversational manner. Accompanying blog post here.

Features

Search NIH-funded research projects with various criteria:
- Fiscal years
- Principal Investigator names
- Organization details (name, state, city, type, department)
- Funding amounts
- COVID-19 response status
- Funding mechanism
- Institute/Center codes
- RCDC terms
- Date ranges
Search publications associated with NIH projects
Combined search functionality for both projects and publications
Detailed project and publication information including abstracts
Configurable result limits

Prerequisites

Python 3.12 or higher
UV package manager (recommended for faster dependency installation)

Installation

Clone the repository:

git clone <repository-url>
cd mcp-nih-reporter

Create and activate a virtual environment:

python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate  # On Windows, use `.venv\Scripts\activate`

Install dependencies using UV:

uv pip install -e .

Usage

This MCP server provides access to the NIH RePORTER API through several tools:

search_projects: Search for NIH-funded research projects
search_publications: Search for publications associated with NIH projects
search_combined: Combined search for both projects and publications
test_connection: Test the API connection

You can use this MCP with any MCP-compatible client, such as:

Claude Desktop
Cursor
Other MCP-enabled tools

Example claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
	 "nih-reporter": {
	      "command": "<fully qualified path to>/uv",
	      "args": [
	        "run",
	        "--with",
	        "mcp[cli]",
	        "mcp",
	        "run",
	        "<fully qualified path to>/mcp-nih-reporter/mcp-nih-reporter.py"
	      ]
	    }
  }
}

The search results will be returned in a structured format containing project details including:

Project title and abstract
Principal Investigator information
Organization details
Funding information
Project dates and status

Debugging

A log file will be created in the root folder when the MCP attempts to run in a client (e.g. Claude Desktop). Check there if you're having trouble.

Development

The project uses:

httpx for async HTTP requests
mcp for the Mission Control Protocol implementation
python-dotenv for environment variable management
uv for dependency management

Logging

Logs are written to mcp-nih-reporter.log in the project root directory. The logging level is set to INFO by default.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request. For major changes, please open an issue first to discuss what you would like to change.

Fork the repository
Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add some amazing feature')
Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
Open a Pull Request

Please make sure to update tests as appropriate and follow the existing code style.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Integrations