diff --git a/gnu/packages/bioinformatics.scm b/gnu/packages/bioinformatics.scm
index 5e8eef4e1c..bf8eb2e697 100644
--- a/gnu/packages/bioinformatics.scm
+++ b/gnu/packages/bioinformatics.scm
@@ -6137,6 +6137,29 @@ data.  It is derived from the UCSC hg19 genome and based on the \"knownGene\"
 track.  The database is exposed as a @code{TxDb} object.")
     (license license:artistic2.0)))
 
+(define-public r-sparql
+  (package
+  (name "r-sparql")
+  (version "1.16")
+  (source (origin
+           (method url-fetch)
+           (uri (cran-uri "SPARQL" version))
+           (sha256
+            (base32
+             "0gak1q06yyhdmcxb2n3v0h9gr1vqd0viqji52wpw211qp6r6dcrc"))))
+  (properties `((upstream-name . "SPARQL")))
+  (build-system r-build-system)
+  (propagated-inputs
+   `(("r-rcurl" ,r-rcurl)
+     ("r-xml" ,r-xml)))
+  (home-page "http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/SPARQL")
+  (synopsis "SPARQL client for R")
+  (description "This package provides an interface to use SPARQL to pose
+SELECT or UPDATE queries to an end-point.")
+  ;; The only license indication is found in the DESCRIPTION file,
+  ;; which states GPL-3.  So we cannot assume GPLv3+.
+  (license license:gpl3)))
+
 (define-public vsearch
   (package
     (name "vsearch")