Human Protein Atlas Database

This is one of those specialized research tools that bridges the gap between gene expression and actual protein presence. It pulls data from the Human Protein Atlas using immunohistochemistry, so you can check whether a protein actually exists in tissue (not just RNA transcripts), where it lives in the cell, and its blood concentration levels. From the DeepMind science skills collection, so it's built for serious computational biology work. You'll need uv installed, and it makes you acknowledge the HPA license terms before use. Most useful when you're doing protein localization studies or need to validate that transcription actually translates to protein expression in specific tissues or cancer types.

skills.sh installs: 2.3K
GitHub stars: 3.4K
last updated: Aug 21, 2026

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Install

$ npx -y skills add google-deepmind/science-skills --skill human-protein-atlas-database --agent claude-code

Installs into .claude/skills of the current project.

Files

Human Protein Atlas (HPA) Database Integration

This skill provides semi-quantitative protein expression and spatial localisation data from the Human Protein Atlas (HPA). While RNA-seq (e.g., GTEx) tells us if a gene is being transcribed, HPA confirms if the protein product actually exists, where it is located within the cell (e.g. nucleus vs cytoplasm), and its concentration in systemic blood circulation. The data is based on Immunohistochemistry (IHC) across normal human tissues and cancer types.

Prerequisites

uv: Read the uv skill and follow its Setup instructions to ensure uv is installed and on PATH.
User Notification: If .licenses/human_protein_atlas_database_LICENSE.txt does not already exist in the workspace root directory then (1) prominently notify the user to check the terms at https://www.proteinatlas.org/about/licence, then (2) create the file recording the notification text and timestamp.