The Human Genome Organization (HUGO) is an international society of elected members with an interest in the scientific, commercial, and societal impacts of research on the human genome. HUGO should not be confused with the Human Genome Project (HGP), a U.S. program founded in 1990 and funded by both the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health. HUGO serves as a vehicle for the international coordination of human genome research.

A group of forty-two scientists founded HUGO in September 1988 after a discussion spurred by molecular biologist and Nobel laureate Sydney Brenner (b. 1927) began in April of that year. In the same year the Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health signed a memorandum of understanding to cooperate in support of human genomic research. An eighteen-member executive council leads the organization, but the complete membership forms a general assembly...