COSMIC (Catalogue of Somatic Mutations in Cancer)

Base URL

https://cancer.sanger.ac.uk/cosmic/api/v1/

Auth

Registration required. Free academic account or paid commercial license.

Login to get JWT token:

POST /auth/login
Content-Type: application/json
{"email": "you@example.com", "password": "yourpassword"}

Pass token as: Authorization: Bearer <token>

Key Endpoints

Search mutations by gene

GET /mutations/search?q={gene_symbol}&page=1&page_size=5

Get gene information

GET /genes/{gene_symbol}

Example: /genes/BRAF

Response includes: gene_symbol, gene_name, chromosome, cancer_census (bool), tier, mutation_count, sample_count

Get specific mutation by COSMIC ID

GET /mutations/{cosmic_mutation_id}

Example: /mutations/COSV56056643

Response includes: gene, cds_mutation, aa_mutation, mutation_type, fathmm_prediction, genomic_coordinates, tissue_distribution

Cancer Gene Census

GET /cancer-gene-census?tier=1&page_size=10

Mutations by tissue/histology

GET /mutations/distribution/{gene_symbol}

Rate Limits

Not officially published. Bulk data requires SFTP download (licensed).

Important

• COSMIC requires authentication for all API calls
• Commercial use requires a paid license
• Bulk data access via SFTP is preferred over API for large queries
• API structure may change across COSMIC versions