MCP server wrapping AlphaFold DB and 13 other biomedical data sources, with a local SQLite knowledge graph.
Project description
AlphaFold Sovereign MCP
A Model Context Protocol server that wraps AlphaFold DB and 13 other public biomedical data sources behind a set of MCP tool calls, and persists each result to a local SQLite knowledge graph for later querying.
This is an unfunded, independent open-source project. It is not a service, not certified for any regulated use, and its outputs are research aids that should be reviewed by qualified humans before any clinical or regulatory use.
Status: v1.1.1. Engineering-grade (677 tests, 100% line and
branch coverage, full legal kit). Not yet scientifically validated by
independent domain experts; see STATUS.md and
LIMITATIONS.md.
What this is
A Python MCP server that:
- Wraps AlphaFold DB, UniProt, MONDO, HPO, Open Targets, ClinVar, gnomAD, DisGeNET, ChEMBL, Ensembl, InterPro, RCSB PDB, Gene Ontology, and Human Protein Atlas behind MCP tool calls. Each call is a thin orchestration over those upstreams; the server does not add scientific judgement.
- Composes upstreams into multi-source workflows: variant cross-reference reports, disease–target landscape summaries, heuristic target-druggability scoring, drug-repurposing candidate ranking, and cross-species structural-distance computation.
- Persists every tool result to a local SQLite knowledge graph
(
storage/knowledge_graph.py) so a research session accumulates a queryable, exportable database. - Includes a topological-data-analysis (TDA) module that computes
persistent-homology fingerprints (Betti numbers β₀, β₁, β₂) over
Vietoris-Rips filtrations of Cα coordinates, and an
L2-distance comparator between those fingerprint vectors. The full
persistent-homology features require the optional
[tda]extra (gudhi).
It targets mcp-spec 2025-06-18 and runs on Python 3.10–3.13.
What this is not
- It is not a hosted service or a SaaS.
- It is not certified for any regulated use (HIPAA, GxP, 21 CFR Part 11, FedRAMP, FIPS, SOC 2). The code structures audit logging in a way that could later support such a certification, but no such audit has been performed.
- It does not train, fine-tune, or publish AlphaFold models — it consumes AlphaFold DB's public REST API.
- The "ACMG/AMP criteria" that
generate_variant_clinical_reportproduces are a draft surface of the upstream evidence the server can fetch automatically. They are not a substitute for clinical-laboratory variant review. - The "druggability tier" that
assess_target_druggabilityreturns is a heuristic built from drug-precedent counts, Open Targets tractability labels, pLDDT, and gnomAD constraint. It is not a validated prediction. - "Structural distance" between proteins is an L2 distance on length-normalised TDA fingerprint vectors. It measures topological similarity of the Cα point cloud. It is not a sequence similarity, RMSD, optimal-transport Wasserstein distance, or functional-equivalence measure.
- The AlphaFold structures consumed here are predicted models with per-residue pLDDT confidence, not experimental structures. Low-pLDDT regions are unreliable; some proteins (BRCA1 among them) are largely low-confidence, and structural inference over those regions should be treated with caution.
For a complete, itemised list of known limitations (with module
references, impact, and planned resolution), see LIMITATIONS.md.
For the high-level posture — what is engineering-validated vs. what is
not yet scientifically validated — see STATUS.md.
Install
From PyPI (recommended)
pip install alphafold-sovereign-mcp
Or run it without installing using uvx:
uvx --from alphafold-sovereign-mcp alphafold-sovereign-mcp
Every release on PyPI is built by the release.yml workflow under
OIDC Trusted Publishing, attached to a signed GitHub Release with
SLSA L3 build provenance and Sigstore (cosign) signatures, and
mirrored to a Zenodo DOI. Verify the supply chain with
scripts/replicate.sh.
From source
git clone https://github.com/smaniches/alphafold-sovereign-mcp
cd alphafold-sovereign-mcp
uv pip install -e .
# With persistent-homology TDA (requires gudhi):
# uv pip install -e ".[tda]"
Verify the install
alphafold-sovereign --version # → 1.1.1
alphafold-sovereign --self-test # → PASS on the offline BRCA1 fixture
--self-test boots the server in offline mode and exercises the
deterministic logic of generate_variant_clinical_report against a
built-in BRCA1:c.5266dupC fixture. No network calls; returns exit
code 0 on PASS, non-zero on FAIL.
Configure Claude Desktop
Add to claude_desktop_config.json:
{
"mcpServers": {
"alphafold-sovereign": {
"command": "alphafold-sovereign-mcp",
"args": []
}
}
}
Restart Claude Desktop and the tools become available in conversations.
See the examples/ directory for three end-to-end
illustrations of what a session looks like.
Offline mode
ALPHAFOLD_OFFLINE=1 alphafold-sovereign-mcp
Refuses all outbound HTTP. Serves only from the local SQLite cache.
Tool inventory
The server exposes 29 MCP tools across four modules. Each tool's input schema is a Pydantic model; results are JSON.
Disease & ontology (tools/disease.py)
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
lookup_disease |
MONDO record + hierarchy + ICD cross-references |
search_diseases |
Full-text MONDO ontology search |
lookup_phenotype |
HPO term + associated diseases |
get_gene_phenotype_profile |
HPO phenotypes + gnomAD constraint for a gene |
get_disease_targets |
Top drug targets for a MONDO disease (Open Targets) |
get_target_diseases |
Top diseases for a UniProt target (Open Targets) |
get_common_disease_targets |
Parallel profiling across curated MONDO diseases |
triage_variant_3d |
HGVS → ClinVar + gnomAD + MONDO disease context |
phenotype_to_structures |
HPO → diseases → OT targets → UniProt IDs |
get_orphan_disease_atlas |
Orphanet → MONDO → HPO + OT targets |
compare_disease_target_overlap |
Jaccard similarity of target sets for two diseases |
resolve_icd10_to_mondo |
ICD-10 code → MONDO disease record |
Precision medicine (tools/precision_medicine.py)
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
generate_variant_clinical_report |
HGVS → multi-source report + draft ACMG/AMP criteria |
assess_target_druggability |
UniProt → HOT/WARM/COLD/NOT_DRUGGABLE tier |
synthesize_protein_dossier |
UniProt → multi-source briefing |
map_disease_drug_landscape |
MONDO → approved drugs + pipeline + ChEMBL phase counts |
classify_variant_acmg |
HGVS → ACMG/AMP criteria checklist (PVS1, PM2, PP3, BS1, BP4) |
find_drug_repurposing_candidates |
MONDO → candidates ranked by OT evidence × ChEMBL phase |
The ACMG/AMP criteria produced are a draft: they reflect the upstream evidence the server can fetch automatically, and they are not a substitute for clinical-laboratory review.
Structure intelligence (tools/structure_intelligence.py)
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
analyze_structural_confidence |
pLDDT distribution + PAE-derived domain map |
compute_topology_fingerprint |
64-dim TDA fingerprint (Betti numbers β₀ β₁ β₂) |
compare_proteins_topologically |
Pairwise L2 fingerprint-distance matrix for 2–10 proteins |
find_evolutionary_structural_shifts |
Cross-species structural divergence (TDA + Ensembl orthologs) |
score_binding_pocket_geometry |
Geometric pocket detection + heuristic druggability index |
detect_intrinsically_disordered |
IDR map (linkers, tails, long IDRs) |
Knowledge graph (tools/knowledge_graph_tools.py)
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
query_variant_database |
Search locally stored variant triage results |
query_protein_database |
Search locally stored protein assessments |
get_knowledge_graph_stats |
Database size, entity counts, last activity |
export_research_dataset |
Export tables to JSON for pandas/ML pipelines |
find_drug_gene_network |
Traverse the accumulated drug–gene–disease graph |
Example usage
For three documented end-to-end illustrations of a Claude Desktop
session against this server — variant triage on BRCA1 c.5266dupC,
target characterisation on EGFR, and a drug-discovery walk-through
on Imatinib → BCR-ABL → CML — see the examples/
directory. Each example includes the user prompt, the tool calls
the model issues, the server's response shape, and the model's
paraphrased reply.
Clinical variant report
generate_variant_clinical_report(hgvs="BRCA1:c.181T>G")
The server resolves the HGVS, fetches ClinVar, gnomAD, AlphaMissense (via AlphaFold DB), Open Targets disease evidence, ChEMBL drug data, and Ensembl VEP consequence annotations, and returns a single JSON record with the cross-referenced fields plus the ACMG/AMP criteria that the available evidence supports.
Drug repurposing
find_drug_repurposing_candidates(disease_mondo_id="MONDO:0007739")
Returns drugs whose Open Targets evidence connects them to the disease, ranked by a composite of OT evidence score × the maximum ChEMBL clinical phase reached against the target.
Cross-species structural divergence
find_evolutionary_structural_shifts(
gene_symbol="ACE2",
target_species=["mus_musculus", "rhinolophus_ferrumequinum"]
)
For each species: fetches the ortholog (Ensembl), the AlphaFold structure, computes the TDA fingerprint, and returns the L2 fingerprint distance from the human structure along with sequence identity.
Data sources
| Source | What we use | License |
|---|---|---|
| AlphaFold DB v6 (EBI/DeepMind) | Structures, pLDDT, PAE, AlphaMissense | CC BY 4.0 |
| UniProt | Protein function, domains, GO | CC BY 4.0 |
| MONDO (OLS4) | Disease ontology, ICD cross-refs | CC BY 4.0 |
| HPO (JAX) | Phenotype terms, gene-disease links | hpo.jax.org |
| Open Targets | Disease–target evidence | Apache 2.0 |
| ClinVar (NCBI) | Variant pathogenicity | Public domain |
| gnomAD v4 | Population allele frequencies | ODbL |
| DisGeNET | Gene–disease association scores | CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 |
| ChEMBL v34 (EMBL-EBI) | Drug bioactivity, MoA, ADMET | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
| Ensembl (EMBL-EBI) | VEP, orthologs, gene lookup | Apache 2.0 |
| InterPro | Domain + family annotations | CC0 |
| RCSB PDB | Experimental structures | CC0 |
| Gene Ontology | Biological process, molecular function | CC BY 4.0 |
| Human Protein Atlas | Tissue expression | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
See NOTICE for full attributions.
Architecture
clients/_base.py
├── Air-gap enforcement (refuses sockets when ALPHAFOLD_OFFLINE=1)
├── Token-bucket rate limiting (aiolimiter)
├── Exponential backoff with jitter (tenacity)
├── Circuit breaker (CLOSED / OPEN / HALF_OPEN)
└── Content-addressed SHA-256 dedup of upstream responses
storage/knowledge_graph.py
├── SQLite WAL mode (embedded, ACID)
├── 6 entity tables: proteins, variants, diseases, drugs, genes, phenotypes
├── 4 relationship tables: protein_disease, protein_drug, variant_disease, gene_phenotype
├── tool_invocations audit table (SHA-256 of input + output, timestamps)
└── Analytical views: variant_summary, drug_landscape
domain/disease.py
└── Pure Python frozen dataclasses (PathogenicityClass, VariantReport, ...)
See ARCHITECTURE.md for the full module map.
Testing & quality
- 677 unit tests with respx-mocked upstreams; the full suite runs hermetically in under a minute on a laptop.
- Coverage on the shipped surface (
src/alphafold_sovereign/clients,domain,storage,server,tools): 100% line + branch, every shipped module at 100%. - Lint:
ruff(full ruleset, no per-file ignores on the production tree). Type checking:mypy --stricton the domain, clients, and storage subtrees. - Security:
banditplus CodeQLsecurity-extended. - Supply chain: SBOM generation in CI; reproducible-build script at
scripts/replicate.sh.
The full CI matrix (Python 3.10, 3.11, 3.12, 3.13 × Ubuntu, macOS)
runs on every push. Test counts and coverage percentages above are
the numbers a git clone && uv run pytest produces on the current
HEAD; if you find a divergence, please open an issue.
Contributing
DCO sign-off required (git commit -s). No copyright assignment.
Coverage gate: CI enforces 100% line and branch coverage on the shipped surface.
Full guide: CONTRIBUTING.md.
Related MCP servers by the same author
uniprot-mcp— Model Context Protocol server for UniProt Swiss-Prot and TrEMBL (pip install uniprot-mcp-server).semantic-scholar-mcp— Semantic Scholar MCP server, 200M+ academic papers (pip install s2-mcp-server).
Citation
Machine-readable metadata: CITATION.cff (GitHub
renders a "Cite this repository" button in the sidebar that consumes
this file).
@software{maniches_alphafold_sovereign_mcp,
author = {Maniches, Santiago},
title = {AlphaFold Sovereign MCP},
year = {2026},
version = {1.1.1},
url = {https://github.com/smaniches/alphafold-sovereign-mcp},
license = {Apache-2.0},
orcid = {0009-0005-6480-1987},
doi = {10.5281/zenodo.20134774}
}
When citing results derived from this software, please also cite the upstream data sources (AlphaFold DB, UniProt, Open Targets, ChEMBL, Ensembl, ClinVar, gnomAD, MONDO, HPO, DisGeNET, RCSB PDB, InterPro, Gene Ontology, Human Protein Atlas) according to their own citation requirements.
License
Copyright 2024–2026 Santiago Maniches.
Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0. See LICENSE.
Patent reservation: see PATENTS.md.
Trademark policy: see TRADEMARKS.md.
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