Open Targets
by Open Targets
Query the Open Targets Platform's target-disease associations, genetics, drugs and tractability from your AI agent. 5 read-only tools built around a GraphQL schema explorer and executor — research data, not clinical advice.
Verified connector
Listed by Anthropic as a partner connector in its Connectors Directory.
Connection checked by Agentman on .
Anthropic states this reflects the level of review a connector received, not a security audit.
Connect Open Targets via MCP
https://mcp.platform.opentargets.org/mcpWorks in any MCP-compatible client. In Agentman Studio it is one click — no config file to edit.
Open Targets Tools & Capabilities (5)
Retrieve the Open Targets Platform GraphQL schema filtered by category. You MUST specify one or more categories to retrieve the relevant schema subset. Categories group related GraphQL types into coherent subschemas (e.g., 'drug-mechanisms', 'genetic-associations', 'target-safety'). The returned schema includes types from the specified categories plus their dependencies expanded. Available categories: - cancer-genomics: Cancer-specific genomic evidence from Cancer Gene Census, IntOGen, cancer biomarkers databases, and cancer hallmarks. Identifies cancer driver genes and somatic mutations. - clinical-genetics: Clinical genetics databases and rare disease evidence from ClinGen, ClinVar, Genomics England PanelApp, Orphanet, and Gene2Phenotype. Provides clinical validity of gene-disease relationships, pathogenic variants, and clinical genomics panels. - comparative-genomics: Cross-species comparative genomics and orthology relationships for leveraging model organism data. Shows evolutionary conservation and functional predictions based on homology. - disease-associations: Target-disease association evidence and target prioritisation, integrating evidence across multiple data types. Shows the strength of association between genes/targets and diseases and the target prioritisation factors that can be used to prioritise targets for further investigation. - disease-phenotypes: Disease phenotypes, symptoms, and ontology for understanding clinical manifestations, disease classifications, and relationships between different conditions. - drug-indications: Approved and investigational drug indications, clinical trial phases, mechanism-based predictions for drug repurposing, and known drug-disease relationships. - drug-mechanisms: Drug mechanisms of action and target interactions from ChEMBL, including drug-target relationships, polypharmacology profiles, and molecular mechanisms of therapeutic effects. - drug-safety: Post-market drug safety and pharmacovigilance data from FDA FAERS, including adverse events, drug warnings, and safety alerts for approved medications. - entity-search: Cross-entity search and entity discovery across all entity types with keyword search capabilities. Enables finding targets, diseases, drugs, variants, and studies by name or identifier. - experimental-models: Experimental model organism data including CRISPR knockout screens, mouse phenotypes from IMPC, cancer cell line dependency from DepMap, and chemical probes. Provides functional validation data from laboratory experiments. - functional-genomics: Gene expression, biological pathways, and systems biology data from Expression Atlas, Reactome, Gene Ontology. Provides context on gene function, regulation, and pathway involvement. - genetic-associations: Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and molecular QTL associations. Returns GWAS summary statistics, shared trait studies, and disease-associated genetic variants from population-scale studies. Fine-mapping results and credible set analysis from GWAS and QTL studies. Includes locus-to-gene predictions, colocalization analyses, and probabilistic identification of causal variants. - genetic-constraint: Genetic constraint metrics. Measures selection pressure on genes including loss-of-function intolerance, showing which genes are essential for survival. - literature-evidence: Scientific literature and bibliographic data, including disease and drug bibliographies. Supports text-mined evidence and citation networks. - molecular-interactions: Protein-protein interactions and molecular networks for understanding biological context, cellular pathways, and functional relationships between biomolecules. - pharmacogenomics: Genetic variation affecting drug response, including gene-drug interactions, genotype-dependent efficacy or toxicity, and personalized medicine applications. - platform-metadata: Platform metadata including version information, data release prefix, and metadata on all downloadable datasets. Also includes metadata on Open Targets (OTAR) projects (if available). - protein-information: Protein abundances and subcellular localization data. - target-safety: Target safety liabilities and toxicity predictions based on adverse events, animal toxicology, and clinical safety flags. Assesses potential risks of modulating a therapeutic target. - target-tractability: Target druggability and tractability assessments, including small molecule and antibody tractability predictions. Evaluates the likelihood of successfully developing drugs against a target. - variant-annotation: Variant functional annotation and population genetics. Includes variant effect predictions (VEP), European Variation Archive data, UniProt variant annotations, and predicted functional consequences of genetic variation. Args: categories (list[str]): List of category names to filter the schema. Returns only types relevant to the specified categories. (examples: ['drug-mechanisms'], ['target-safety', 'drug-safety']) Returns: (str): The schema text in SDL (Schema Definition Language) format.
Get schema subsets for types, separated by specific and shared deps. Given a list of type names, returns SDL (Schema Definition Language) organized into type-specific dependencies and shared dependencies. Args: type_names (list[str]): List of GraphQL type names to start exploration from. (examples: ['Target', 'Drug']) Returns: (dict[str, str]): Dictionary with one key per input type: SDL for types ONLY reachable from that type and 'shared' key: SDL for types reachable from multiple input types.
Search for entities across multiple types using the Open Targets Platform search API. This tool performs a streamlined entity search that returns the id and entity type for up to 3 matching entities across targets, diseases, drugs, variants, and studies. Supports multiple query strings in a single call - each query is executed independently and results are returned in a dictionary keyed by the query string. Args: query_strings (list[str]): List of search queries. (examples: ['BRCA1', 'aspirin']) Returns: (dict[str, list[SearchEntitiesFoundEntity]]): Top 3 hits for each query string, with entity ID and type.
Execute GraphQL queries against the Open Targets Platform API. WORKFLOW - Follow these steps in order: Step 1: RESOLVE IDENTIFIERS If user provides common names (gene symbols, disease names, drug names), use `search_entity` tool FIRST to convert them to standardized IDs: - Targets/Genes: "BRCA2" -> ENSEMBL ID "ENSG00000139618" - Diseases: "breast cancer" -> EFO/MONDO ID "MONDO_0007254" - Drugs: "aspirin" -> ChEMBL ID "CHEMBL1201583" - Variants: Use "chr_pos_ref_alt" format or rsIDs Example: search_entity(query_string="BRCA2", entity_names=["target"]) Step 2: LEARN QUERY STRUCTURE Call `get_open_targets_graphql_schema` with relevant categories to retrieve the schema subset needed for your query. Select categories that cover the data domains you need - BE INCLUSIVE (it's better to include extra categories than to miss required types). Example: For a query about drug mechanisms and safety: get_open_targets_graphql_schema(categories=["drug-mechanisms", "drug-safety"]) Study the returned schema to understand available types, fields, and their relationships, then construct a GraphQL query that fetches the information the user needs. FALLBACK: If you encounter errors or need detailed information about specific types, use `get_type_dependencies` sparingly to explore type relationships. This tool provides exhaustive type dependency information but should only be used when category-based retrieval is insufficient. Step 3: CONSTRUCT AND EXECUTE QUERY Build GraphQL query using: - Standardized IDs from Step 1 (REQUIRED) - Query structure from Step 2 - Follow the "COMMON MISTAKES TO AVOID" guidance in the schema output Call this tool with query_string and optional variables. REQUIRED IDENTIFIER FORMATS: - Targets/Genes: ENSEMBL IDs (e.g., "ENSG00000139618") - Diseases: EFO IDs (e.g., "EFO_0000305") or MONDO IDs (e.g., "MONDO_0007254") - Drugs: ChEMBL IDs (e.g., "CHEMBL1201583") - Variants: "chr_pos_ref_alt" format (e.g., "19_44908822_C_T") or rsIDs (e.g., "rs7412") - Studies: Study IDs (e.g., "GCST90002357") - Credible Sets: Study Locus IDs (e.g., "7d68cc9c70351c9dbd2a2c0c145e555d") Args: query_string (str): GraphQL query string starting with 'query' keyword. variables (UnionType[dict[str, Any], None]): Optional dict or JSON string with query variables. Returns: (QueryResult): GraphQL response with data field containing targets, diseases, drugs, variants, studies or error message.
Execute the same GraphQL query multiple times with different variable sets. Use this tool instead of the regular query tool when you need to run the same query repeatedly with different arguments (e.g., querying multiple drugs, targets, or diseases). WORKFLOW - Follow these steps in order: Step 1: RESOLVE IDENTIFIERS If user provides common names (gene symbols, disease names, drug names), use `search_entity` tool FIRST to convert them to standardized IDs: - Targets/Genes: "BRCA1", "BRCA2" -> ENSEMBL IDs "ENSG00000012048", "ENSG00000139618" - Diseases: "breast cancer" -> EFO/MONDO ID "MONDO_0007254" - Drugs: "aspirin", "ibuprofen" -> ChEMBL IDs "CHEMBL1201583", "CHEMBL521" - Variants: Use "chr_pos_ref_alt" format or rsIDs Example: search_entity(query_string="BRCA1 BRCA2", entity_names=["target"]) Step 2: LEARN QUERY STRUCTURE Call `get_open_targets_graphql_schema` with relevant categories to retrieve the schema subset needed for your query. Select categories that cover the data domains you need - BE INCLUSIVE (it's better to include extra categories than to miss required types). Example: For a query about drug mechanisms and safety: get_open_targets_graphql_schema(categories=["drug-mechanisms", "drug-safety"]) Study the returned schema to understand available types, fields, and their relationships, then construct a GraphQL query that fetches the information the user needs. FALLBACK: If you encounter errors or need detailed information about specific types, use `get_type_dependencies` sparingly to explore type relationships. This tool provides exhaustive type dependency information but should only be used when category-based retrieval is insufficient. Step 3: CONSTRUCT AND EXECUTE BATCH QUERY Build GraphQL query and variables_list using: - Standardized IDs from Step 1 (REQUIRED) - Query patterns from Step 2 - Follow the "COMMON MISTAKES TO AVOID" guidance in the schema output Call this tool with query_string, variables_list, and key_field. REQUIRED IDENTIFIER FORMATS: - Targets/Genes: ENSEMBL IDs (e.g., "ENSG00000139618") - Diseases: EFO IDs (e.g., "EFO_0000305") or MONDO IDs (e.g., "MONDO_0007254") - Drugs: ChEMBL IDs (e.g., "CHEMBL1201583") - Variants: "chr_pos_ref_alt" format (e.g., "19_44908822_C_T") or rsIDs (e.g., "rs7412") - Studies: Study IDs (e.g., "GCST90002357") - Credible Sets: Study Locus IDs (e.g., "7d68cc9c70351c9dbd2a2c0c145e555d") Args: query_string (str): The GraphQL query string to execute for all variable sets. variables_list (list[dict[str, Any]]): List of variable dictionaries, one per query execution. key_field (str): Variable field name to use as key in results mapping. Returns: (BatchQueryResult): Results keyed by the specified field value, with execution summary.
Read from the server on 2026-08-18, including each tool's own safety annotations.
Limits
- This is research data, not clinical or therapeutic advice. The connector returns evidence linking genes to diseases and drugs to targets. It does not recommend treatments, does not describe any individual, and has no dosing, prescribing or patient field anywhere in its schemas. Do not paste identifiable health information into a prompt.
- Association scores rank; they do not certify. Open Targets' own documentation states they should not be read as a confidence score for the association, and that under-studied diseases will score low for lack of evidence rather than lack of biology.
- The connector is experimental, and the vendor says so twice. Both the README and the Platform's Model Context Protocol documentation page carry a warning that the MCP is under active development and that features, APIs and documentation may change without notice.
- The model writes the queries, and nothing bounds their complexity. No depth limit, no complexity budget and no cost cap appears in the tool schemas or the GraphQL API documentation. A malformed or over-broad query is a real failure mode, and it is the agent's to avoid.
- Open Targets discourages entity-at-a-time querying. Its GraphQL API documentation asks users not to repeatedly query one entity at a time and points at data downloads or BigQuery for systematic work. That advice applies directly to agent loops.
- Variant coverage is a small slice of known human variation. Open Targets' FAQ states that a Platform variant must be associated with a disease, trait or phenotype in at least one of its variant-to-phenotype sources, which accounts for about 1% of variants reported in gnomAD — 6.5 million against 700 million. A variant absent from the Platform is not a variant that does not exist.
- Studies are filtered before ingestion. The FAQ lists quality-control exclusions: unsupported study types, invalid target or biosample identifiers, failed summary-statistic QC, and a tightened p-value threshold of 1e-8 for GWAS Catalog curated associations. Excluded records are published separately, not through this connector.
search_entitiesreturns at most three hits per query string. An ambiguous gene or drug name gives you a short list, not a ranked candidate set, so identifier resolution can silently pick the wrong entity.- Identifier formats are mandatory and unforgiving. The query tools require ENSEMBL, EFO or MONDO, ChEMBL, chr_pos_ref_alt or rsID, GWAS study IDs, and study-locus IDs for credible sets. A human-readable name passed straight into a query will not resolve.
- jq filtering is not available on the hosted endpoint. The parameter exists in the open-source server behind a flag, and the live schemas we read carry no
jq_filterfield. - The vendor's own tool descriptions contain a stale tool name. Both query tools instruct the model in step 1 to call
search_entitywith anentity_namesargument. No such tool and no such parameter exist on this server; the real tool issearch_entitiesand its only parameter isquery_strings. The README's Strategy section is correct and also orders the steps differently from the tool descriptions — schema first, then identifiers. Expect occasional agent confusion at the resolve step. - Upstream licences ride on the data. The Platform is CC0 1.0, but it aggregates sources under their own terms, including CC BY-SA 3.0 for ChEMBL and the Human Protein Atlas, and EMBL-EBI terms for ClinVar, GWAS Catalog, IntAct and Gene2Phenotype. Open Targets' terms of use also warn that original data may carry third-party rights and that it is the user's responsibility not to infringe them.
- Open Targets disclaims accuracy. Its terms of use state that it does not guarantee the accuracy of any provided data, database, software or online service, nor its suitability for any purpose.
- The directory listing is one tool behind. See the drift section above.
- We did not call any tool. Our check was a read-only
initialize,tools/list,prompts/list,resources/listandresources/templates/listhandshake, plus static fetches of the endpoint's own homepage and health route. Every tool behaviour described here comes from the server's schemas, its open-source code, Open Targets' documentation and Anthropic's tutorial.
Frequently asked questions
Does the Open Targets connector need an account or an API key?
No. We opened an anonymous handshake against the endpoint on 2026-08-18 and it returned all five tool definitions with no credential, and the server answered a tool-listing request in the same session. The host publishes no OAuth protected-resource descriptor at either the root or the path-suffixed form, both 404. Open Targets Platform data is public-domain, so there is nothing to gate.
Can the Open Targets connector change or delete anything?
No. All five tools are annotated readOnlyHint true, and the server's own source hardcodes that annotation on every tool it registers rather than setting it per tool. The two query tools accept GraphQL but send it to the Platform's public read API, which exposes queries only. There is no mutation, no upload and no write path anywhere in the tool surface.
How does an agent know what to query if there are only five tools?
It reads the schema first. get_open_targets_graphql_schema returns a filtered slice of the Platform's GraphQL schema for one or more of 21 named categories, such as drug-mechanisms or target-safety, and get_type_dependencies expands specific type names. The agent studies that SDL, then composes a query. Open Targets calls this a three-step workflow in its README.
What rate limits apply to the Open Targets MCP server?
The hosted endpoint rate-limits everything except the handshake. Our probes on 2026-08-18 got a rate-limit error on prompts and resources listing while initialize and tools listing succeeded in the same session, which matches the server's middleware exempting exactly those two methods. The repository's defaults are 3 requests per second with a burst capacity of 100.
What licence covers data the Open Targets connector returns?
The Platform itself is marked CC0 1.0, dedicating the data to the public domain with no reuse restriction, and the connector code is Apache 2.0. But Open Targets integrates dozens of upstream sources under their own terms, including CC BY-SA 3.0 for ChEMBL and EMBL-EBI terms for ClinVar and GWAS Catalog. Check the licence page before redistributing a derived dataset.
Can Open Targets tell me which drug treats a disease?
No. It returns evidence about target-disease associations, not therapeutic recommendations. Open Targets states plainly that association scores are a heuristic based on data availability and should not be interpreted as a confidence score for the association. An under-studied disease produces low scores because it is under-studied. Nothing here accounts for a person, and treatment decisions belong with a qualified clinician.
Is the Open Targets MCP server production-ready?
Open Targets says not yet. Both the repository README and the Platform documentation page carry an explicit warning that the MCP is experimental and under active development, and that features, APIs and documentation may change without notice. The connector is listed at partner tier and works, but treat the tool surface and its behaviour as subject to change.
Sources
- Open Targets Platform documentation, Model Context Protocol (retrieved 2026-08-18; 200, read as Markdown via the
.mdsuffix). Open Targets' own MCP page. Source for the remote and local connection routes, the endpoint, the experimental warning, and the fact that Open Targets also runs an MCP server for its documentation athttps://platform-docs.opentargets.org/~gitbook/mcp. That docs server is a separate thing from this connector and is not described on this page. · retrieved 2026-08-18 - Live
initialize,tools/list,prompts/list,resources/listandresources/templates/listhandshake againsthttps://mcp.platform.opentargets.org/mcpover an anonymous connection (2026-08-18). Source for the five tool names, every tool description and parameter named here, the uniform single-key annotations, the declaredpromptsandresourcescapabilities, the rate-limit responses, the empty resource-template list, and theserverInfoversion 2026.7.1. No tool was called. · retrieved 2026-08-18 - Open Targets Platform MCP repository, README (retrieved 2026-08-18; 200). Note the directory's
documentationvaluehttps://github.com/opentargets/open-targets-platform-mcpnow 301-redirects: the repository was renamed toopentargets/platform-mcp. Source for the five documented tools, the three-step strategy, theOTP_MCP_settings table including the 3-requests-per-second and 100-burst rate limiting defaults and the 30-second API timeout, the jq filtering feature and its default-off state, the self-hosting routes, and the experimental disclaimer. · retrieved 2026-08-18 - Open Targets Platform MCP repository, source — and (retrieved 2026-08-18; 200 each). Source for the rate-limit exemption set of exactly
initializeandtools/list, and for the singleannotations={"readOnlyHint": True}applied to every registered tool. The repository is Apache 2.0 per the GitHub API's licence field. · retrieved 2026-08-18 - Open Targets Platform MCP repository, PRIVACY.md (retrieved 2026-08-18; 200). States that the server does not collect, store or process any personal data from users, including no IP address, no device information and no cookies. · retrieved 2026-08-18
- Open Targets Platform documentation, Licence (retrieved 2026-08-18; 200). Source for the CC0 1.0 dedication of Platform data, the Apache 2.0 licensing of the codebases, and the per-source licence table naming CC BY-SA 3.0 for ChEMBL and the Human Protein Atlas and EMBL-EBI terms for ClinVar, GWAS Catalog, IntAct and Gene2Phenotype. · retrieved 2026-08-18
- Open Targets Platform documentation, Terms of use (retrieved 2026-08-18; 200). Source for the accuracy disclaimer, the third-party rights warning, and the statement that usage which looks likely to prevent Open Targets serving others will be blocked. · retrieved 2026-08-18
- Open Targets Platform documentation, Target–disease associations (retrieved 2026-08-18; 200). Source for the association definition, direct versus indirect associations, the harmonic-sum scoring at data source, data type and overall levels, and the quoted statement that scores should not be interpreted as a confidence score. · retrieved 2026-08-18
- Open Targets Platform documentation, GraphQL API (retrieved 2026-08-18; 200). Source for the underlying API base URL, the seven documented query entry points, and the vendor's advice against repeatedly querying one entity at a time. · retrieved 2026-08-18
- Open Targets Platform documentation, FAQs (retrieved 2026-08-18; 200). Source for the variant coverage figure of roughly 1% of gnomAD variants, the study quality-control exclusions and the 1e-8 p-value threshold, and the credible-set definition. · retrieved 2026-08-18
- Open Targets Platform documentation, Release notes (retrieved 2026-08-18; 200). Source for the release cadence and the current 26.06 release dated 24 June 2026. · retrieved 2026-08-18
platform-docs.opentargets.org/robots.txt(retrieved 2026-08-18; 200) isAllow: /and carriesContent-Signal: ai-train=yes, search=yes, ai-input=yes— an explicit opt-in on all three axes, so synthesising this page's prose from those docs is expressly permitted.platform.opentargets.org/robots.txt(200) allows everything except search-result and evidence pages, neither of which was fetched.mcp.platform.opentargets.org/robots.txt404s. · retrieved 2026-08-18- Using the Open Targets Connector in Claude (retrieved 2026-08-18; 200). Anthropic's own tutorial for this connector. Source for the three setup routes, the Claude Code plugin commands, the audiences, the three example research scenarios, and the statement that the connector makes the GraphQL API accessible as read-only. · retrieved 2026-08-18
- Life sciences plugin marketplace (retrieved 2026-08-18; 200). Anthropic's own marketplace repository. Confirms the plugin declares the same endpoint as the directory. A full tree listing returned only that one file under
open-targets/— no README, no bundled skill. · retrieved 2026-08-18 - MCP server homepage and health route —
https://mcp.platform.opentargets.org/and/health(retrieved 2026-08-18; 200 each). The server's own HTML page independently lists all five tools and reports version 2026.7.1, corroborating the handshake against the directory's four names. · retrieved 2026-08-18 - Endpoint auth discovery —
https://mcp.platform.opentargets.org/.well-known/oauth-protected-resource, its RFC 9728 path-suffixed form/.well-known/oauth-protected-resource/mcp, and/.well-known/mcp/server-card.jsonall returned 404 (retrieved 2026-08-18). Consistent with the successful anonymous handshake and the directory's authless record. · retrieved 2026-08-18 - Anthropic connector verification and directory documentation — and . Source for the statement that verification is not a security audit and that the label reflects the level of review a connector received, not how it works.
- Anthropic Connectors Directory entry (added 2026-01-12; snapshot taken 2026-08-16). Lists four tool names, an empty prompt_names array,
partnertier, the data and life-sciences categories,is_authless: true, streamable-HTTP transport, OpenTargets as author, and the endpoint used throughout this page. It is the only Open Targets entry in the 1,897-entry snapshot. · retrieved 2026-01-12 - Anthropic privacy policy — .
- Support — per the directory, which redirects to the renamed repository's issue tracker. Open Targets also directs feedback to .
Use in Agentman
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Open in Agentman StudioServer Info
- Category
- Data & Research
- Developer
- Open Targets
- Tools
- 5
- Domain
- mcp.platform.opentargets.org
Using Claude Desktop or another MCP client? Setup docs — the connection URL above works anywhere.