NCBI Gene Database Scraper

Search the NCBI Gene database via E-utilities. Returns structured gene records including symbol, full name, chromosome location, map locus, aliases, OMIM ID, and functional summary — for any organism.

Features

• E-utilities esearch + esummary pipeline (same infrastructure as PubMed)
• Filter by organism (default: Homo sapiens, supports any NCBI taxonomy name)
• Wildcard search: BRCA* matches BRCA1, BRCA2, etc.
• Returns chromosomal coordinates (accession, start, stop, exon count)
• Includes OMIM cross-reference where available
• No API key required

Input

Field	Type	Required	Default	Description
geneName	string	✅	—	Gene symbol or name, e.g. BRCA1 or insulin receptor
organism	string		Homo sapiens	Organism filter (NCBI taxonomy name)
maxResults	integer		50	Max gene records (1–5,000)

Output

{
  "geneId": "672",
  "symbol": "BRCA1",
  "fullName": "BRCA1 DNA repair associated",
  "chromosome": "17",
  "location": "17q21.31",
  "aliases": ["BRCAI", "BRCC1", "IRIS", "PNCA4", "RNF53"],
  "organism": "Homo sapiens",
  "summary": "This gene encodes a nuclear phosphoprotein that plays a role in maintaining genomic stability and acts as a tumor suppressor...",
  "omimId": "113705",
  "chrAccession": "NC_000017.11",
  "chrStart": 43044294,
  "chrStop": 43170245,
  "exonCount": 24,
  "url": "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/gene/672"
}

Use Cases

1. Cancer Gene Panel Annotation

A molecular diagnostics company builds an annotation pipeline for a targeted NGS panel: they input 300 cancer-related gene names and retrieve chromosomal coordinates, OMIM IDs and functional descriptions for all of them in minutes.

2. Pharmacogenomics Database

A research group building a drug-gene interaction database scrapes NCBI Gene for all genes involved in drug metabolism (e.g. CYP* wildcard) — getting aliases, chromosome locations and summaries as seed data.

3. Medical Genetics Education

A genetics professor generates weekly problem sets by querying genes related to the lecture topic (e.g. collagen) and exporting the results as a structured dataset for students to analyze chromosomal distribution and disease associations.

Data Source

NCBI Gene E-utilities API — NCBI/NIH, no API key required (rate-limited at 3 req/sec).

Pricing

Pay-per-result. 100 genes ≈ $0.50–$1.00.