Gene Lens

Look up any human gene symbol without leaving the page you're reading.

Gene Lens is a Chrome extension for anyone who reads papers, preprints, forum threads, or GitHub issues where gene symbols show up as bare, unexplained jargon — TP53, BRCA1, EGFR — with no context unless you stop and go search for it yourself.

Why I built this

Reading genomics literature means constantly breaking your flow: you hit a gene symbol, open a new tab, search HGNC or NCBI or Ensembl, skim the result, and go back — for every single symbol, sometimes dozens per paper. It's tedious, and it adds up. Gene Lens collapses that whole loop into a double-click or a quick search, right where you're already reading.

What it does

• Double-click a gene symbol anywhere on a web page and it looks it up instantly.
• Search manually from the side panel — useful for PDFs, scanned documents, or images where there's no selectable text to double-click.
• Shows the essentials at a glance: full name, approval status, chromosomal location, aliases and previous symbols, gene family, and direct links out to HGNC, Ensembl, Entrez, UniProt, OMIM, UCSC, and RefSeq for anyone who wants to dig deeper.
• Works entirely offline at lookup time — no network request is made when you search, so it's fast and doesn't leak what you're reading to anyone. The one exception is the optional Open LocusZoom button (see below).
• Open LocusZoom on any gene with known coordinates to see it plotted in its genomic context — nearby genes, exon structure, and gnomAD constraint metrics — in a separate popup window.

How to use it

1. Install the extension (see below).
2. Double-click any gene symbol on a web page — the side panel opens automatically with the result.
3. Or open the side panel yourself any time via the toolbar icon, or the keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+Shift+G on Windows/Linux, Cmd+Shift+G on Mac — configurable in chrome://extensions/shortcuts), and type a symbol into the search box.
4. If a symbol isn't found, it just means it's not a recognized human gene symbol (see below on data coverage) — not a bug.

About the data

• Human genes only. Gene Lens is built on HGNC (the HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee), the official authority for human gene symbols. It does not include mouse, rat, or any other organism's genes — a symbol that's only used in another species won't resolve here.
• Genome build. Genomic coordinates and biotype are enriched from Ensembl, using the current GRCh38 human genome assembly.
• Static snapshot, not a live lookup. The gene database is bundled with the extension and regenerated periodically from HGNC and Ensembl — it's not a live query against those services, so very recently approved or renamed symbols may not be reflected until the next update.
• LocusZoom is the one online feature. Clicking "Open LocusZoom" fetches live gene-track and constraint data from the UMich PortalDev API and gnomAD — this is the only time Gene Lens makes a network request, and only when you explicitly click that button.

Installation

1. Grab the latest build from the Releases page — download the .zip asset and unzip it.
2. In Chrome, go to chrome://extensions, enable Developer mode (top right), then click Load unpacked and select the unzipped folder.
3. Pin the Gene Lens icon to your toolbar for quick access.