A Biomedical research MCP server and a Research Agent using it - implementation without framework and using only local models

Anthropic's Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open standard designed to facilitate seamless integration between AI models, particularly large language models (LLMs), and external tools or data sources.

I am intrigued by Anthropic's MCP model. I want to understand it better. I decided to implement a proof-of-concept server for some common tasks in biomedical research. I wanted my locally running LLMs (using ollama as inference server) to be able to search pubmed or the web in order to answer medical questions.  I also wanted to see whether I can produce a lean system with minimal dependencies outside standard python libraries, without using any larger frameworks, commercial software, or commercial API keys. Most biomedical researchers outside the pharmaceutical industry have rather limited financial means, so zero or near zero cost systems are preferable.

One trustworthy source of medical information is the pubmed database.

*PubMed is a free, searchable database maintained by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) and its division, the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). It provides access to over 37 million citations and abstracts from biomedical and life sciences literature, primarily through its core component, MEDLINE, which uses Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) for indexing

However, querying it is sort of an art - phrasing the query sub-optimally might either miss too many relevant results, or result in a deluge of irrelevant results. While SOTA models such as Claude Sonnet 3.7 have become quite apt in translating a human language question into a good pubmed query, many smaller models struggle or even fail in that task. When working on a larger (ongoing) project of agentic query optimization , I learned to optimize prompts to instruct smaller models to perform acceptably. 

My MCP server needs to both help my LLM to craft a pubmed query based on a natural language medical question, as well as to execute the query and retrieve relevant context to the query results. 

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The MCP server

So, the first few tools my MCP server should serve include

• providing a prompt that will guide most smaller models towards crafting efficient and valid pubmed queries
• running a pubmed query
• retrieving publications from pubmed or the web as per query results
• formatting the retrieved context suitable for LLM processing (eg Markdown)

---

The Agent using the server

My proof-of-concept framework-less agent should be able to

• decide whether a question requires context to answer correctly
• use the pubmed and websearch tools provided accordingly
• realize that if a pubmed query is required, it may not know how to craft a valid or efficient query, and use prompting assistance from the MCP server
• answer the question based on the retrieved/provided context

---

Development environment, tools and libraries

Development environment will be what I am already familiar with

• VS code with Github Copilot using Claude Sonnet 3.7 for coding assistance
• flask for web serving; we will not use stdio based communication since our tools might be hosted on a variety of local servers
• beautifulsoup for web scraping
• ollama as inference server, and the python ollama library
• phi4 as example llm because it is small, fast, and does the job even on modest hardware

---

Decision process and tool use for our agent

flowchart TD
    Start([User Question]) --> AgentReceives[Agent Receives Question]
    
    AgentReceives --> GetTools[Agent Requests Tool Inventory]
    GetTools --> MCPClient1[MCP Client]
    MCPClient1 --> MCPServer1[MCP Server: tools/list]
    MCPServer1 --> MCPClient1
    MCPClient1 --> ToolsAvailable[Tool Inventory Available]
    
    ToolsAvailable --> Decision{Can Answer From\nGeneral Knowledge?}
    Decision -->|Yes| DirectAnswer[Generate Answer Directly\nvia Ollama Phi-4]
    
    Decision -->|No| ToolSelection{Which Tool\nto Use?}
    ToolSelection -->|General Information| WebSearch[Web Search Tool]
    ToolSelection -->|Medical Literature| PubMedPath[PubMed Search Path]
    
    PubMedPath --> QueryDecision{Need Help\nCrafting Query?}
    
    QueryDecision -->|Yes, Request Prompt| GetQueryPrompt[Request Query Crafting Prompt]
    GetQueryPrompt --> MCPClient2[MCP Client]
    MCPClient2 --> MCPServer2[MCP Server:\nget_pubmed_query_crafting_prompt]
    MCPServer2 --> MCPClient2
    MCPClient2 --> PromptReceived[Query Crafting Prompt Received]
    PromptReceived --> CraftQuery[Craft Optimized Query\nvia Ollama Phi-4]
    
    QueryDecision -->|No, Direct Query| DirectQuery[Create Query Directly]
    
    CraftQuery --> ExecuteSearch[Execute PubMed Search]
    DirectQuery --> ExecuteSearch
    
    ExecuteSearch --> MCPClient3[MCP Client]
    MCPClient3 --> MCPServer3[MCP Server:\npubmed_search]
    MCPServer3 --> PMIDs[PubMed Search Results\nwith PMIDs]
    PMIDs --> MCPClient3
    MCPClient3 --> ResultsReceived[Search Results Received]
    
    ResultsReceived --> ArticleRetrieval[Retrieve Article Details]
    ArticleRetrieval --> MCPClient4[MCP Client]
    MCPClient4 --> MCPServer4[MCP Server:\nget_article]
    MCPServer4 --> FullArticle[Article Abstract/Details]
    FullArticle --> MCPClient4
    MCPClient4 --> ArticleReceived[Article Details Received]
    
    ArticleReceived --> ContextGeneration[Generate Answer Context]
    WebSearch --> ContextGeneration
    
    ContextGeneration --> FinalAnswer[Generate Final Answer\nvia Ollama Phi-4]
    DirectAnswer --> Response([Return Answer to User])
    FinalAnswer --> Response
    
    %% Style definitions
    classDef decision fill:#ffcccc,stroke:#ff6666,stroke-width:1px;
    classDef process fill:#ccffcc,stroke:#66ff66,stroke-width:1px;
    classDef endpoint fill:#f5f5f5,stroke:#333,stroke-width:2px;
    classDef client fill:#ccccff,stroke:#6666ff,stroke-width:1px;
    classDef server fill:#ffffcc,stroke:#ffff66,stroke-width:1px;
    
    %% Apply styles
    class Decision,QueryDecision,ToolSelection decision;
    class AgentReceives,GetTools,ToolsAvailable,DirectAnswer,CraftQuery,DirectQuery,ExecuteSearch,ResultsReceived,ArticleRetrieval,ArticleReceived,ContextGeneration,FinalAnswer,WebSearch process;
    class Start,Response endpoint;
    class MCPClient1,MCPClient2,MCPClient3,MCPClient4 client;
    class MCPServer1,MCPServer2,MCPServer3,MCPServer4,PMIDs,FullArticle,PromptReceived server;

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How the information flows between user, agent, LLM, MCP server, and PubMed API

---

Installation

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/hherb/biomedmcp.git
cd biomedmcp

# Create a virtual environment
python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate  # On Windows: .venv\Scripts\activate

# Install dependencies
pip install -e .

# Install dev dependencies for testing
pip install -e ".[dev]"

Requirements

• Python 3.12+
• Ollama with a compatible model (default: phi4:latest)
• Optional: NCBI API key for higher PubMed rate limits (set NCBI_API_KEY environment variable)

---

Usage

Starting the MCP Server

Network Mode (HTTP):

python biomed_mcpserver.py --mode network --port 5152

Local Mode (stdin/stdout):

python biomed_mcpserver.py --mode local

Using the Research Agent

# Interactive mode with default settings
python AutonomicResearchAgent.py

# With custom model
python AutonomicResearchAgent.py --model llama3.2:latest

# With verbose logging
python AutonomicResearchAgent.py --verbose

Using the Research Assistant

# Interactive research assistant
python ResearchAssistant.py

# Force specific approach
python ResearchAssistant.py --force-pubmed  # Always use PubMed
python ResearchAssistant.py --force-web     # Always use web search

---

Available MCP Tools

Tool	Description
pubmed_search	Search PubMed for articles matching a query
get_article	Get detailed information about a specific article by PMID
get_pubmed_query_crafting_prompt	Get a prompt to help craft optimized PubMed queries
web_search	Search the web using DuckDuckGo
web_content	Retrieve and process content from a URL

---

Programmatic Usage Example

from MCPClient import MCPClient

# Connect to the MCP server
client = MCPClient(base_url="http://localhost:5152")

# Search PubMed
result = client.execute_tool(
    "pubmed_search",
    {"query": "SGLT2 inhibitors heart failure", "max_results": 5}
)
print(result)

# Get article details
article = client.execute_tool(
    "get_article",
    {"pmid": "12345678"}
)
print(article)

---

Running Tests

# Run all tests
pytest

# Run with coverage
pytest --cov=. --cov-report=html

# Run specific test file
pytest tests/test_pubmed_tools.py

---

Project Structure

biomedmcp/
├── biomed_mcpserver.py      # MCP server (HTTP and local modes)
├── MCPClient.py             # HTTP-based MCP client
├── MCPLocalClient.py        # Local/subprocess MCP client
├── AutonomicResearchAgent.py # Autonomous research agent
├── ResearchAssistant.py     # Interactive research assistant
├── PubMedTools.py           # PubMed API integration
├── WebTools.py              # Web search and content tools
├── AgentMemory.py           # Helper utilities
├── example_clients.py       # Usage examples
├── tests/                   # Unit tests
└── pyproject.toml           # Project configuration