pubmed-mcp-server MCP server

Search PubMed/Europe PMC, fetch articles and full text (PMC/EPMC/Unpaywall), citations, MeSH terms via MCP. STDIO or Streamable HTTP.

What pubmed-mcp-server does

Summarised from the project README; check the repository for the latest details.

Features

• NCBI E-utilities (ESearch, EFetch, ESummary, ELink, ESpell, EInfo, ECitMatch) and the PMC ID Converter, with Europe PMC, OpenAlex, and Unpaywall filling the gaps
• Shared NCBI request queue: paced request starts, capped concurrency, a cooldown that holds every caller after an NCBI 429, and one deadline covering queue wait and retries
• XML parsing built for PubMed's inconsistent records: structured abstracts, missing fields, varying date formats
• Forgiving identifiers: a zero-padded PMID resolves as the PMID it spells in every tool that takes one; `pubmedfetchfulltext` also matches DOIs case-insensitively and PMC IDs with or without the `PMC` prefix
• Hand-rolled citation formatters (APA, MLA, BibTeX, RIS, Vancouver) with no dependencies
• Provenance on every response: source labels, license fields, best-effort warnings on Unpaywall results, and effective-query echo on searches, so agents can judge what to trust

Tools exposed (11)

• pubmed_search_articles – Search PubMed with full query syntax, structured filters, date ranges, and optional summaries
• pubmed_fetch_articles – Fetch article metadata by PMID: abstract, authors, journal, MeSH terms, grants, a collective author's investigators on request, linked retra
• pubmed_fetch_fulltext – Fetch full text by PMID, PMCID, or DOI, falling back from PMC to Europe PMC to Unpaywall
• pubmed_europepmc_search – Search Europe PMC for preprints, patents, Agricola, and open-access records PubMed doesn't carry
• pubmed_europepmc_fetch – Fetch complete Europe PMC records, including the untruncated abstract, as `records: [{ source, epmcId }]`
• pubmed_format_citations – Format citations in APA 7th, MLA 9th, BibTeX, RIS, or Vancouver (ICMJE/NLM), with linked retraction and correction notices
• pubmed_find_related – Find similar articles, citing articles, or references for a PMID
• pubmed_spell_check – Correct a misspelled PubMed query via NCBI ESpell
• pubmed_lookup_mesh – Look up MeSH headings with tree numbers, scope notes, and entry terms
• pubmed_lookup_citation – Resolve partial references, up to 25 at a time, to PMIDs via ECitMatch
• pubmed_convert_ids – Convert between DOI, PMID, and PMCID via the PMC ID Converter

Requirements

• Bun v1.4.0 or higher (or Node.js v24+).
• Optional: an NCBI API key raises the rate limit from 3 to 10 requests per second.
• Remote server URL (no local install)

How to install pubmed-mcp-server MCP in Claude Desktop, Cursor and VS Code

claude mcp add --transport http pubmed-mcp-server https://pubmed.caseyjhand.com/mcp

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pubmed-mcp-server": {
      "type": "streamable-http",
      "url": "https://pubmed.caseyjhand.com/mcp"
    }
  }
}

{
  "servers": {
    "pubmed-mcp-server": {
      "type": "streamable-http",
      "url": "https://pubmed.caseyjhand.com/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Add to config generator – combine it with other servers, or get the Windsurf format.

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