# PubMed Citation Lookup & Search (PMID, DOI, NCBI) (`wintersworks/pubmed-citation-lookup`) Actor

PubMed citation lookup and search with the official NCBI E-utilities API, in bulk by PMID or query: title, authors, journal, date, DOI, PMC ID, article type and link.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/wintersworks/pubmed-citation-lookup.md
- **Developed by:** [Winters Works](https://apify.com/wintersworks) (community)
- **Categories:** Developer tools, Other
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

$2.00 / 1,000 article records

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## PubMed Citation Lookup & Search (PMID, DOI, NCBI)

Search **PubMed** or look up **PMIDs in bulk** through the official **NCBI E-utilities** API. Get clean citation records: title, authors, journal, publication date, volume/issue/pages, DOI, PMC ID, publication types, PMC citation count and link. Export JSON, CSV or Excel.

### Use cases

- **Researchers and librarians:** build reference lists from PMIDs or search queries.
- **Biotech and pharma analysts:** monitor new literature on a topic.
- **Data teams:** enrich PMID columns with DOI, journal and date.
- **AI agents:** structured literature lookups via API or MCP.

### How it works

1. PMIDs go straight to NCBI ESummary; other lines are run as PubMed searches via ESearch.
2. Every request carries NCBI's `tool` and `email` identification parameters, and requests are paced to at most about 2.6 per second (NCBI's limit is 3 per second without an API key).
3. One flat record per article is written; this returns citation metadata, not abstracts or full text.
4. Each article returned is one billed event.

### Input

```json
{
  "queries": [
    "37000000",
    "CRISPR base editing"
  ],
  "maxPerQuery": 3,
  "sort": "relevance"
}
```

Empty input `{}` runs a small demo. Other options: `maxPerQuery`, `sort`, `maxResults`, `concurrency`.

### Output (one item per result)

```json
{
  "pmid": "37000000",
  "title": "Single-Time-Point Dosimetry of (177)Lu-PSMA-617 Radionuclide Therapy with SPECT/CT.",
  "firstAuthor": "Burkett BJ",
  "journal": "Radiology. Imaging cancer",
  "pubDate": "2023 Mar",
  "doi": "10.1148/rycan.239006",
  "pmcid": "PMC10077076",
  "url": "https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37000000/",
  "error": null
}
```

### Example output

Real output from a default run (some fields omitted for width):

| pmid | title | firstAuthor | journalAbbrev | pubDate | doi |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 38308006 | CRISPR technologies for genome, epigenome and transcriptome editing. | Villiger L | Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol | 2024 Jun | 10.1038/s41580-023-00697-6 |

Every run also produces a ready-made table view in the Output tab, and you can export to JSON, CSV or Excel.

### Pricing

Pay per event: **$0.002 per article record** ($2.00 per 1,000). Duplicates, failed lookups and empty results are not charged.

### FAQ

**Is this legal?** It uses the free public NCBI E-utilities API as NCBI's usage policy describes: requests go to eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, stay under 3 per second, and include the `tool` and `email` parameters. Only bibliographic metadata is returned, not abstracts or full text, which publishers or authors may copyright. NCBI's policy asks that large jobs (over 100 requests) run on weekends or 9 pm-5 am US Eastern on weekdays; the Actor does not schedule this for you, so schedule big runs accordingly. Data is provided as-is: NCBI makes no warranty about its accuracy or completeness, does not endorse this Actor, and nothing here is medical advice. See the [NCBI Disclaimer and Copyright notice](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/home/about/policies/). This Actor is not affiliated with NCBI or NLM.

**Why no abstracts?** Abstracts can carry publisher copyright; this Actor returns citation metadata only and links to the PubMed page.

**Are failures charged?** No. Errors and queries with no match are not charged.

### Limitations

Metadata only (no abstracts, MeSH terms or full text). Runs are paced at about 2.6 requests per second to respect NCBI limits (each search query costs two requests), so 1,000 queries take roughly 15-20 minutes.

### About

Built and maintained by Winters Works. Questions or feature requests: open an issue on the Actor page or email wintersworks.shop@gmail.com.

# Actor input Schema

## `queries` (type: `array`):

One per line: a PMID (digits) or any PubMed search query, e.g. 'CRISPR base editing\[Title] AND 2024\[dp]'.

## `maxPerQuery` (type: `integer`):

Cap on articles returned per search query (each article is billed).

## `sort` (type: `string`):

Sort search results by relevance or by publication date.

## `maxResults` (type: `integer`):

Cap on inputs processed (duplicates are skipped and never charged).

## `concurrency` (type: `integer`):

Parallel requests.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "queries": [
    "37000000",
    "CRISPR base editing"
  ],
  "maxPerQuery": 3,
  "sort": "relevance",
  "maxResults": 1000,
  "concurrency": 3
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

All result items from the run's default dataset.

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "queries": [
        "37000000",
        "CRISPR base editing"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("wintersworks/pubmed-citation-lookup").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = { "queries": [
        "37000000",
        "CRISPR base editing",
    ] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("wintersworks/pubmed-citation-lookup").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "queries": [
    "37000000",
    "CRISPR base editing"
  ]
}' |
apify call wintersworks/pubmed-citation-lookup --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,wintersworks/pubmed-citation-lookup"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/XtKGqzXgKv2egDbjq/builds/fYnIlK1oe1wWcLNHx/openapi.json