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

Related MCP server: HAPI-MCP

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.