🧬 ChEMBL Targets Scraper

🚀 Export ChEMBL drug-target records in seconds. Preferred name, organism, target type, components, gene symbol, and tax ID.

🕒 Last updated: 2026-06-05 · 📊 11 fields per record · 15,000+ drug targets · EBI ChEMBL public API

The ChEMBL Targets Scraper turns the public ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/data/target endpoint into a structured dataset. It runs a list query, a free-text search, or an exact ChEMBL ID lookup, then flattens each target's components and gene-symbol synonyms into top-level fields.

🎯 Target Audience	💡 Primary Use Cases
💊 Drug discovery teams	Build target shortlists for screening
🧪 Bioinformaticians	Mirror ChEMBL targets into a warehouse
📊 Computational chemists	Map targets to assays
🛡️ Pharma BD	Cross-reference targets with patents
👩‍🔬 Academic researchers	Snapshot the human target space
👩‍💻 Developers	Drive a target browser UI

📋 What the ChEMBL Targets Scraper does

• Calls the public /data/target endpoint with the filters you provide.
• Supports list, search, and exact-ID modes.
• Flattens the target_components array and pulls the GENE_SYMBOL synonym into geneSymbol.
• Filters by organism and target type.
• Surfaces upstream errors as a single diagnostic record.
• Exports to every Apify dataset format.

💡 Why it matters: ChEMBL's REST endpoint is rich but deeply nested. This actor lifts the most useful fields to the top so they drop straight into pandas or BigQuery.

🎬 Full Demo

🚧 Coming soon.

⚙️ Input

Field	Type	Required	Description
maxItems	integer	No	Free 10. Paid up to 1,000,000.
targetChemblId	string	No	Exact lookup such as `CHEMBL203`.
search	string	No	Free-text search.
organism	string	No	Exact organism filter.
targetType	enum	No	ChEMBL target type.

Example 1. Search EGFR family.

{ "search": "EGFR", "organism": "Homo sapiens", "maxItems": 25 }

Example 2. Exact target lookup.

{ "targetChemblId": "CHEMBL203" }

⚠️ Good to Know: ChEMBL paginates 200 records per page. The actor handles it automatically.

📊 Output

Field	Type	Description
🆔 targetChemblId	string	ChEMBL target id.
📛 prefName	string	Preferred name.
🧬 organism	string	Source organism.
🎯 targetType	string	Target type.
🧫 geneSymbol	string	Gene symbol synonym.
🔢 taxId	number	NCBI tax id.
🚩 speciesGroupFlag	boolean	Species group flag.
🧩 components	array	Flattened components with accessions.
🔗 crossReferences	array	External cross-refs.
🕒 scrapedAt	string	When this row was fetched.
❌ error	string	Set on upstream error.

{
  "targetChemblId": "CHEMBL203",
  "prefName": "Epidermal growth factor receptor erbB1",
  "organism": "Homo sapiens",
  "targetType": "SINGLE PROTEIN",
  "geneSymbol": "EGFR",
  "taxId": 9606,
  "scrapedAt": "2026-06-05T12:00:00.000Z",
  "error": null
}

✨ Why choose this Actor

| 🆓 | Public EBI ChEMBL endpoint, no key required. | | 🧬 | Flattens components and gene-symbol synonym to top level. | | 🔎 | Search, list, or exact-ID modes. | | 🛟 | Clean diagnostic records on errors. | | 💾 | Push to dataset for instant export. |

📈 How it compares to alternatives

Approach	Setup	Component flatten	Auto export
chembl_webresource_client Python	install + script	manual	manual
Raw fetch on the REST endpoint	30 min +	manual	manual
This Actor	5 sec	✅	✅

🚀 How to use

1. Click Try for free.
2. Provide an ID, search, or list filters.
3. Click Start and download the dataset.

💼 Business use cases

💊 Target triage. Snapshot every human single-protein target related to a pathway.

🧪 Assay planning. Pair with the ChEMBL Assays Scraper for a full target-to-assay matrix.

🛡️ Competitive landscape. Cross-reference targets with patent or trial datasets.

📊 Pipeline analytics. Track new ChEMBL releases.

🔌 Automating ChEMBL Targets Scraper

• Make and Zapier trigger this actor on a schedule.
• Cron keeps your mirror fresh.
• Webhooks notify on completion.
• Pipe to BigQuery, Snowflake, or Postgres with native integrations.

🌟 Beyond business use cases

🎓 Education. Teach drug-discovery with live data.

🧪 Personal research. Explore the human target space.

🤝 Non-profit and open data. Publish a target dashboard.

🧰 Tinkering. Look up a single target.

🤖 Ask an AI assistant about this scraper

Pop this README into ChatGPT, Claude, or any AI assistant and ask it to map your specific workflow to the actor's inputs.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

❓ Need an API key? No.

❓ Source? Official EBI ChEMBL REST API.

❓ Schedule runs? Yes.

❓ Rate limits? Light per-IP throttle.

❓ API or scraping? API.

❓ Schema stability? Stable.

❓ Maximum run? 1,000,000 records on paid plans.

❓ Gene symbol? Pulled from GENE_SYMBOL synonyms in components.

❓ Cross-references? Yes, kept as array.

❓ Download formats? Any Apify dataset format.

🔌 Integrate with any app

Apify ships native integrations with Make, Zapier, Slack, Discord, Google Drive, Google Sheets, Gmail, Airbyte, Keboola, Telegram, GitHub, and any REST API or webhook endpoint.

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💡 Pro Tip: browse the complete ParseForge collection for 900+ production-grade scrapers.

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