Research & Data Connectors

A connector is a connection to data, not a magic button. It tells Claude where to read. Whether the output is useful still depends on what you ask and how you check the result.

Research is the connector category where Claude collapses the most expensive thing a knowledge worker does: reading. Whether the reading is medical literature, financial filings, government datasets, or CAD specifications, the underlying workflow is the same: ingest a large pile, surface what matters, draft something useful. The catalog spans roughly 60 tools across four clusters, organized below by the type of question you are trying to answer.

What does the research and data category include?

• Scientific and medical literature. PubMed, bioRxiv, Consensus, Scite, Scholar Gateway. Search, summarize, citation tracking.
• Clinical and biotech. Clinical Trials, ChEMBL, Open Targets, Synthesize Bio, ICD-10, NPI Registry, 10x Genomics Cloud, Benchling, Owkin, Function Health, HealthEx, PopHIVE, Enrichr, Medidata, AdisInsight.
• Financial markets and business intelligence. FactSet, PitchBook, Morningstar, Daloopa, S&P Global, LSEG, FMP, IBISWorld, D&B Risk, ThoughtSpot Spotter, Datasite, MT Newswires, ICE Data Services, Moody’s, MSCI, Quartr, Bigdata.com, CB Insights, Verisk.
• Government and open data. CKAN, GovTribe, Tango, MoSPI, CMS Coverage, Clarity AI (SFDR), NPI Registry.
• 3D, CAD, and engineering reference. Blender, Autodesk Fusion, Trimble SketchUp, OpenSTAAD.
• General-purpose research. Wolfram (math and computational knowledge), Tavily (live web search), BioRender (scientific diagrams).

Which research and data connector should I add first?

Research connectors should match the type of research you actually do. Pick the one connector that covers your most-repeated query and add others as they earn their place.

1. Wolfram. The single most useful research connector for non-specialists. Computational math, unit conversion, real-time data queries. Five minutes to set up, immediately useful.
2. Tavily or Consensus. If you do general research and want Claude to cite live web sources. Tavily is web-wide; Consensus is academic-paper-focused.
3. Your domain’s specialist source. PubMed if you read medical literature, PitchBook if you do deal flow, FactSet if you do equity research, ChEMBL if you do drug discovery, CKAN if you analyze public data.
4. Optional: Benchling or Owkin. Only if you work in life sciences. Skip otherwise.

Standout prompts for the research and data stack

These are the prompts that exploit each connector’s specific capability rather than treating Claude like a generic chat tool. Copy, paste, modify the specifics to match your context.

• Literature TL;DR. Reads 10 papers on a topic from PubMed or bioRxiv, ranks by methodological quality and recency, drafts a 500-word summary with the three biggest open questions.
• Methods Skim. For a specific paper, pulls the methods section, drafts a plain-English explanation of what they actually measured and how.
• Drug-Target Lookup. Connect ChEMBL plus Open Targets; give Claude a target name, get a one-page summary of known compounds, mechanism of action, and ongoing trials.
• Clinical Trial Pull. Given a condition, surfaces all active trials filtered by phase and geography, drafts a one-paragraph summary of each.
• Competitive Deal Flow. Connect PitchBook plus CB Insights; ask for all Series B rounds in a category over the past quarter, drafts the market map.
• Equity Brief from Filings. Connect FactSet or Quartr; pulls a company’s last earnings call transcript plus 10-K excerpts, drafts the investment thesis.
• Government Data Hunt. Connect CKAN or MoSPI; ask for the most recent dataset on a topic, Claude pulls it, summarizes structure, drafts the analysis approach.
• Wolfram Math Check. When you need a quick computation or unit conversion grounded in the right physics or constants, Wolfram returns it via the connector instead of Claude estimating.
• 3D Model Brief from CAD. Connect Autodesk Fusion or SketchUp; Claude reads model metadata, drafts the spec sheet, identifies parts that may need stress analysis.
• Citation Chain Builder. Given one seed paper, Claude follows its citations via Scite or Scholar Gateway, builds a one-page summary of the research lineage.

How do I add the Wolfram connector?

1. In Claude, open the toolbox in the bottom-left, click Customize, then Connectors.
2. Click the +, then Browse connectors.
3. Search for Wolfram. Click + on the card.
4. Wolfram is the simplest setup in the entire catalog: no OAuth, no API key. Click Connect, and Claude has access immediately.
5. Test: “How many seconds in a year, accounting for leap year?” Claude uses Wolfram instead of estimating.

Most research connectors use API keys (PubMed via NCBI, ChEMBL, FactSet, PitchBook). Some are OAuth (Benchling, Owkin). A few like Wolfram and Tavily are turnkey with no auth on your end. PubMed and ChEMBL are free public APIs; FactSet, PitchBook, and Morningstar require paid subscriptions to those services to use the connector at all.

What are the limits?

• Premium sources require paid subscriptions. PitchBook, FactSet, Morningstar, S&P Global, LSEG, CB Insights, IBISWorld all charge for access. The connector consumes your seat’s API quota; check before heavy use.
• Per-query result limits. PubMed returns up to 100 abstracts per query, bioRxiv similar. For corpus-scale work, batch by date range.
• Citation tracking has lag. Scite and Scholar Gateway track citations as journals make them available; new citations may take days to appear.
• 3D and CAD connectors expose metadata, not bytes. Autodesk Fusion and SketchUp connectors let Claude reason about model structure but do not render images. Visualization stays in the source tool.

Are these connectors safe to use with work data?

Research data is often public or pre-paywalled, but research workflows can still expose sensitive context. For paid Claude plans the safeguards:

• Clinical data with PHI (Patient Health Information) requires a formal HIPAA Business Associate Agreement. Check Anthropic’s Trust Center for current healthcare posture before connecting clinical systems like Medidata or Benchling for patient-identifiable work.
• Premium financial-data connectors (FactSet, S&P Global) often include redistribution restrictions. Confirm with your data provider that Claude usage falls within your license terms.
• Government open data is generally safe to share freely. The data is already public.
• Wolfram and Tavily are turnkey and pose no additional data risk; queries are anonymous from the source’s perspective.

When does a connector pay off vs. just chatting with Claude?

Connectors earn their setup time when the data updates faster than you can retype it, lives behind login, or runs into the thousands of items. For one-off questions about static information, plain Claude through the chat interface is faster than installing anything. The break-even is usually around the third time you would otherwise be copy-pasting context for the same kind of question. For the full list of connectors and which pillar each belongs to, see the Claude Connectors hub. If a term in this post is unfamiliar, the AI Glossary has plain-English definitions.

Frequently asked questions

Can Claude write a literature review for me?

Yes for the draft; the citations and the editorial judgment are still yours. Use the Literature TL;DR prompt as a first pass, then refine the framing and add your own analysis.

Will Claude hallucinate citations?

Less when grounded in a connector. The connectors return real paper IDs and metadata; Claude works from that data. Always spot-check by clicking through to the original source before publishing.

How does Wolfram compare to Claude’s own math?

Claude is now reasonably good at math, but Wolfram is reliable. For high-stakes computations (financial modeling, engineering, physics), use Wolfram via the connector. For simple arithmetic and rough estimates, Claude alone is fine.

Can Claude run statistical tests?

Through Wolfram or via a data-warehouse connector (Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks). Claude itself does not run R or Python; it can write the code and you execute it elsewhere.

Does the PitchBook connector give me free access?

No. You need an active PitchBook subscription. The connector is a Claude-readable interface to the data you already pay for.

Which connector is best for finding clinical trials?

Clinical Trials (the official ClinicalTrials.gov interface). For drug-target context, pair it with ChEMBL and Open Targets.

Sources

• Anthropic: Introducing Connectors · official launch and partner list
• PubMed E-utilities · the API behind the PubMed connector
• Wolfram Alpha API · computational knowledge engine reference
• ClinicalTrials.gov API · trial-data scope
• Anthropic Trust Center · healthcare and financial data posture

You might also like

• Claude Connectors Guide (2026) · the master hub
• Claude Connectors for Engineering · if you also want data-warehouse connectors
• Claude Connectors for Finance · the operations-side companion
• Claude for Research: Lit Reviews + Data Analysis · the broader research playbook
• Claude for Data Analysis · analytics-side companion
• How to Use Claude AI · the beginner walkthrough
• Best Claude Prompts: 50 Examples · the broader collection
• Best AI Prompts by Job and Use Case · 60+ prompt packs organized by role and artifact