biothings-client
Python Client for BioThings API services.
Decision gist · record as of 2026-08-14
Yes. biothings_client is a stable, actively maintained wrapper for widely-used bioinformatics APIs with low install friction, permissive licensing, no known vulnerabilities, and support for modern Python versions. Install it if you need programmatic access to gene, variant, chemical, disease, or taxon data; skip it only if you prefer direct HTTP calls or need a different data source.AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page — verify before relying
Before you install
- Requires Python 3.7 or higher; caching support requires Python 3.8+.
- Optional dataframe support requires pandas; optional caching requires hishel and anysqlite.
- Low install friction with only three runtime dependencies (httpx, importlib-metadata, typing-extensions).
License · maintenance · safety
BSD-3-Clause (permissive) — Licensed under BSD-3-Clause (permissive), allowing commercial and private use with minimal restrictions beyond retaining the license notice.
last release 2026-07-23 (22 days) · last repo commit 2026-07-23 · 20 stars
0 known vulnerabilities (OSV.dev, 2026-08-14) · 1,497,051 downloads/mo, #3,834 on PyPI
Alternatives
Verify before relying
pip install biothings_client
from biothings_client import get_client
mv = get_client("variant")
result = mv.getvariant("chr7:g.140453134T>C")- Whether the package's 20 GitHub stars reflects sufficient community adoption for production bioinformatics workflows.
- Performance characteristics and rate limits when querying large datasets or running concurrent async requests.
What it is and what it does
biothings_client is a Python wrapper that simplifies access to BioThings API services—a collection of web APIs providing structured biological and chemical data. It offers both synchronous and asynchronous clients for querying genes, genetic variants, chemicals/drugs, diseases, genesets, and taxa. The package abstracts away HTTP details, allowing developers to call methods like getgene(), getvariant(), or getchem() directly and receive structured JSON responses with annotations from multiple sources (RefSeq, PubChem, ClinVar, etc.).
The package has minimal dependencies (httpx for HTTP, importlib-metadata and typing-extensions for compatibility) and supports Python 3.7 and above. Optional extras enable DataFrame output for pandas users and local query caching via SQLite (Python 3.8+ only). It is actively maintained and widely used in bioinformatics workflows.
Use it for
- Query gene annotations by ID or symbol to retrieve RefSeq IDs, protein sequences, and genomic coordinates.
- Look up genetic variants by position to access clinical significance, population frequencies, and structural predictions.
- Retrieve chemical/drug properties by InChI key or PubChem ID for compound analysis and property lookup.
- Batch query taxa by taxon ID to explore lineage, common names, and taxonomic rank information.
- Build async pipelines to fetch disease or geneset annotations without blocking on network I/O.
- Cache query results locally to reduce API calls and speed up repeated lookups in research workflows.
Worth the install?
AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page. Verify before relying on it.
Yes.
biothings_client is a stable, actively maintained wrapper for widely-used bioinformatics APIs with low install friction, permissive licensing, no known vulnerabilities, and support for modern Python versions. Install it if you need programmatic access to gene, variant, chemical, disease, or taxon data; skip it only if you prefer direct HTTP calls or need a different data source.
Install
biothings-client on PyPI
Before you install
Low install friction with only three runtime dependencies (httpx, importlib-metadata, typing-extensions). Actively maintained with a recent release 22 days ago. Supports Python 3.7 and above, though caching features require Python 3.8+.
Requires Python 3.7 or higher; caching support requires Python 3.8+. Optional dataframe support requires pandas; optional caching requires hishel and anysqlite.
License in practice
Licensed under BSD-3-Clause (permissive), allowing commercial and private use with minimal restrictions beyond retaining the license notice.
Quickstart
pip install biothings_client
from biothings_client import get_client
mv = get_client("variant")
result = mv.getvariant("chr7:g.140453134T>C")Verify before relying
- Whether the package's 20 GitHub stars reflects sufficient community adoption for production bioinformatics workflows.
- Performance characteristics and rate limits when querying large datasets or running concurrent async requests.
Package facts
| License | BSD-3-Clause permissive |
| Python support | Supports the current Python release >=3.7 |
| Install friction | Low. Pure-Python wheel |
| Runtime dependencies | 3 packageshttpximportlib-metadatatyping-extensions |
| Maintenance | Actively maintained 22 days since the last release |
| Last repo commit | |
| First released | |
| Downloads | 1,497,051 / month, #3,834 on PyPI 30-day window, as of 2026-08-14 |
| Known vulnerabilities | None known OSV.dev, checked 2026-08-14 |
| Classifiers | Development Status :: 4 - BetaIntended Audience :: DevelopersIntended Audience :: Science/ResearchLicense :: OSI Approved :: BSD LicenseOperating System :: MacOS :: MacOS XOperating System :: Microsoft :: WindowsOperating System :: OS IndependentOperating System :: POSIXProgramming Language :: Python :: 3Programming Language :: Python :: 3 :: OnlyProgramming Language :: Python :: 3.10Programming Language :: Python :: 3.11Programming Language :: Python :: 3.12Programming Language :: Python :: 3.13Programming Language :: Python :: 3.14Programming Language :: Python :: 3.7Programming Language :: Python :: 3.8Programming Language :: Python :: 3.9Topic :: Scientific/Engineering :: Bio-InformaticsTopic :: Utilities |
Evidence: biothings_client-0.5.1-py3-none-any.whl
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