bioRxiv Database

Overview

Python tooling over the keyless bioRxiv API for searching and retrieving life-sciences preprints. Searches by keyword, author, date range, and category, returning structured JSON (titles, abstracts, DOIs, authors, versions), and downloads full-text PDFs.

For published, peer-reviewed literature use alterlab-pubmed; for computer-science / physics / math preprints use alterlab-arxiv. bioRxiv covers biology subjects only.

How it works (and its limits)

The bioRxiv /details endpoint has no server-side keyword, author, or category filter — it only returns preprints by date range, 30 records per page. So this tool:

1. Paginates the full date range (following the cursor until all records are retrieved), then
2. Filters client-side by keyword (substring over title/abstract), author (substring over the author list), and category (exact match on each paper's category field).

Implication: a wide date range means many API calls and a large download. Keep ranges as tight as the question allows, and prefer --category and --limit to bound the work.

When to Use This Skill