How we built a researcher discovery tool without writing a single line of code
Maybe you’re working on a research project and you need to connect with other researchers in your field. You could spend hours manually searching through PubMed, copying and pasting author details into spreadsheets, and trying to track down email addresses. Or… you could build an app that does it all for you!
That’s exactly what I did, and honestly it was way easier than I expected. And let’s be real here, academic research can be a total pain sometimes. Finding the right people to collaborate with or cite shouldn’t require a PhD in database searching. Sure, you could try LinkedIn, but good luck finding researchers who actually keep their academic work updated there, or figuring out if someone’s current research matches what they posted three years ago. I wanted something that could save me hours of manual work, cast a wider net across multiple databases instead of just one, and actually find contact info tied to their actual research because what’s the point if you can’t reach out to anyone?
So I built the Academic Lead Finder, my new favorite research buddy.
This little web app is like having a super helpful research assistant that searches multiple databases at once including PubMed, Europe PMC, bioRxiv, and medRxiv. It finds researcher contact info like emails, institutions, and ORCID IDs, scores papers by relevance so you get the good stuff first, and exports everything to CSV because spreadsheets are life. It’s basically Google for finding researchers, but way more focused and customised.
I am writing this because if you’re running a business that needs to connect with experts, researchers, or thought leaders in any field, this same approach can work for you. Think about it: the ability to quickly build custom tools that solve your specific business problems is a total game changer.
The JDoodle.ai experience
Here’s where it gets really cool, I didn’t write a single line of code from scratch. Using JDoodle.ai‘s no-code platform, I went from “wouldn’t it be cool if…” to “oh wow, it actually works!” in about an afternoon. No joke.
Building apps used to mean learning multiple programming languages, setting up databases and servers, wrestling with APIs and CORS issues, and spending weeks on styling and responsiveness. With JDoodle.ai, it was more like dragging and dropping components, connecting APIs with visual workflows, customizing the look with pre-built themes, and deploying with one click.
I was able to connect multiple APIs like LEGO blocks. The PubMed API handles the heavy-hitting research papers, Europe PMC brings in open-access goodies, bioRxiv and medRxiv cover the latest preprints, and ORCID provides verified researcher profiles. The platform handled all the complex setup while letting me focus on the user experience.
How it actually works
Let’s say you search for “machine learning applications”, our app goes out and checks all the databases at the same time, then smart filtering kicks in based on your preferences for recent papers, specific regions, or publication types. For each author, we play email detective, trying to find contact info through PubMed’s author data, ORCID profiles, and smart institutional guessing. Papers get scored based on how well they match your search using relevance ranking that looks at title matches, content relevance, and recency. Everything appears in a clean table with sortable columns, and one click downloads everything as a CSV for your spreadsheet needs.
Step 1: Starting with a simple prompt
I went to JDoodle.ai and in the main text box, I typed the prompt in simple english. Perfect for someone like me who had an idea but didn’t want to spend weeks coding.
Step 2: JDoodle.ai gets to work
After hitting enter, I saw the “Initialising preview…” screen with the colorful loading dots and “Starting the development server…” message. This took maybe 30-60 seconds while JDoodle.ai processed my request and started building the app.
Step 3: First version appears
The initial app appeared with a clean interface titled “Experiment Lead Extractor”. It had:
- A keyword input field with “Enter keyword and press Enter or click +”
- Location filter dropdown (set to “All Regions”)
- Year selector (defaulted to 2024)
- Score threshold slider
- Publication type dropdown
- Checkboxes for Europe PMC and bioRxiv/medRxiv databases
- A blue “Extract Leads” button
Step 4: Adding more data sources and final touches
I wanted to expand beyond just PubMed, so I went back and refined my prompts:: “Connect to Europe PMC database for additional European research papers” and “Add bioRxiv and medRxiv preprint servers via Crossref API” (Crossref is like a registry that stores metadata for scholarly content so I can search their papers programmatically without scraping each site.)
Step 5: Testing and iterating
I tested it with “organoids” as a keyword and it worked.
The result
Within about an hour of iterative prompting and testing, I had a fully functional research lead finder that:
- Searches multiple academic databases simultaneously
- Extracts contact information and paper details
- Scores results by relevance
- Allows filtering by location, year, and publication type
- Exports results to CSV
- Has a clean, professional interface
Here’s what I did
- My first prompt was basic but clear about the core functionality I wanted.
- Each improvement was just another plain English prompt. No need to understand APIs or database connections. (though the API documentation is super easy to follow)
- I tried the app after each major change to make sure it still worked.
- I kept adding features based on what I’d actually want when using the tool.
- JDoodle.ai handled all the complex technical stuff like API connections, CORS issues, and responsive design automatically.
The whole process felt more like having a conversation with a really smart developer than traditional programming. I described what I wanted, tested it, then described what I wanted to change or add. No coding, no setup, no deployment headaches – just results.
Even though we used no-code, there’s still some cool tech happening under the hood. There’s a React frontend with Tailwind CSS styling, API orchestration handling multiple data sources, smart data parsing from XML, JSON, and various formats, CORS proxy magic to avoid browser security issues, and real-time relevance calculation using keyword matching algorithms. The beauty is that Doodle.ai handled all the complex setup.
What makes this special
There are many tools out there. Whether you’re a researcher looking for collaborators, a student exploring fields, or a business development person hunting for academic partnerships, you can search for anything like “artificial intelligence,” “renewable energy,” or “climate change” and watch the magic happen.
Building useful tools doesn’t have to be hard anymore. I think the barrier between “I wish this existed” and “I built this” has basically disappeared in 2025. There are actually quite a few platforms out there that make this kind of rapid development possible. Bubble is like the Swiss Army knife of no-code development where you can build full web applications with databases, user accounts, payments, the whole nine yards. Companies have built entire startups on Bubble. If you need something complex that handles lots of users and data, this is your go-to.
Then there’s Retool, which is perfect for internal business tools. Need a custom dashboard for your team? Want to build a tool that connects to your existing databases and APIs? Retool makes it ridiculously easy to create professional-looking admin panels and business tools that actually work. Webflow is where you go when you need something that looks absolutely beautiful. It’s like having a world-class web designer and developer rolled into one, perfect for company websites, landing pages, or any project where visual appeal really matters.
And Zapier connects everything together, think of it as digital duct tape that makes all your other tools talk to each other. When someone fills out a form on your website, Zapier can automatically add them to your email list, create a task in your project management tool, and send you a Slack notification.
Now, let’s be clear, this is still a test and a prototype. It’s not perfect, and there are definitely improvements I’d make for a production version. But here’s the thing: it did the job. I actually used it to find researchers for my own projects, and it saved me hours of manual work. Sometimes you don’t need perfection; you just need something that works well enough to solve your immediate problem.
The real takeaway here isn’t just about my research tool. It’s about what becomes possible when you can quickly build custom solutions for your business needs. Need a lead generation tool for a specific industry? Build it. Want to automate a tedious process your team does every week? Build it. Have a crazy idea that could give you a competitive edge? Build it and test it in an afternoon.
Who knows, your “wouldn’t it be cool if…” moment might be just a few clicks away.
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