diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 5316331..5a2e476 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -209,3 +209,4 @@ __marimo__/
 # General
 *.DS_Store
 **.DS_Store
+.idea/
diff --git a/src/core/config.py b/src/core/config.py
index 1a1084f..f03c7e6 100644
--- a/src/core/config.py
+++ b/src/core/config.py
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 from pydantic_settings import BaseSettings
-
+from pathlib import Path
 
 class Settings(BaseSettings):
     # NCBI
@@ -27,6 +27,6 @@ class Settings(BaseSettings):
     DEBUG: bool = True
 
     class Config:
-        env_file = ".env"
+        env_file = Path(__file__).resolve().parent.parent.parent / ".env"
 
 settings = Settings()
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/src/retrieval/pubmed.py b/src/retrieval/pubmed.py
index ed418c1..a79a6e2 100644
--- a/src/retrieval/pubmed.py
+++ b/src/retrieval/pubmed.py
@@ -1,8 +1,28 @@
 import requests
+from lxml import etree
 from src.core.config import settings
 
+def parse_data(xml_text: str) -> list[dict]:
+    article_list = []
+    root = etree.fromstring(xml_text.encode("utf-8"))
+
+    articles = root.findall(".//PubmedArticle")
+
+    # For each article, extract fields using findtext
+    for article in articles:
+        pmid = article.findtext(".//PMID")
+        title = article.findtext(".//ArticleTitle")
+        abstract = article.findtext(".//AbstractText")
+        article_data = {"pmid": pmid, "title": title, "abstract": abstract}
+        if article_data["abstract"] is not None:
+            article_list.append(article_data)
+
+    return article_list
+
+
 def search_pubmed(query: str, max_results: int = 10) -> list[dict]:
     base_url = "https://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/"
+    article_list = []
 
     esearch_params = {
         "db": "pubmed",
@@ -29,7 +49,10 @@ def search_pubmed(query: str, max_results: int = 10) -> list[dict]:
         raw_data = requests.get(f"{base_url}efetch.fcgi", params=efetch_params)
         raw_data.raise_for_status()
 
-        return raw_data.text
+        article_list = parse_data(raw_data.text)
+
+        return article_list
     except Exception as e:
         print(f"Error: {e}")
 
+