The school has been selected as the next site for the Human Genome Organization (HUGO) headquarters. Currently located in Singapore, the headquarters will move to the Ewha campus within this year.
HUGO is an international organization of scientists involved in human genetics. Established in 1988, HUGO has played an essential role behind the scenes of the human genome project. The relocation of the headquarters to Ewha was proceeded after the invitation of Dr. Charles Lee as chair-professor of Ewha Graduate School of Life Science.
Lee is a distinguished biomedical scientist who first discovered the widespread structural variation of the human genome in the form of copy number variation in 2004. Currently, Dr. Lee is the Genomic Medicine Scientific Director of Jackson Laboratory, an independent, nonprofit biomedical research institution with a National Cancer Institute-designated Cancer Center. This March, he has been named the president of HUGO and will serve as president-elect for one year after succeeding the current president.
“The Jackson Laboratory and Ewha Womans University will actively collaborate with HUGO to expand HUGO’s presence throughout the world and create an international panel expert for human genomics,” Lee noted.
In fact, scholarly exchanges between the laboratory and Ewha have already begun. Previously, along with holding joint symposiums on Genomic Medicine with the Jackson Laboratory, Ewha has established Ewha-JAX International Research Center for cancer immunotherapy in 2015.
“Inviting such prestigious international organization to Ewha campus will contribute to the high competence of the international industry-university cooperation the school has aimed for a long time,” said Oh Eak-soo, director of Human Resources Policy at Ewha.
“Especially, by building a strong link among HUGO, Jackson Laboratory and Ewha Womans University, we look forward to advancing new initiatives and ideas in the field of human genome and medicine,” Oh added.
As a part of industry-university cooperation efforts, Oh explained that there would be more direct joint projects with the Jackson Laboratory for undergraduate and graduate students in the future. He noted that collaboration with HUGO will need to go through further discussion and planning.

저작권자 © Ewha Voice 무단전재 및 재배포 금지