The HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee (HGNC) is the only worldwide authority that assigns standardised nomenclature to human genes and is one of the longest-running life science standardisation projects.

The HGNC resource is a freely available and fully searchable repository of HGNC-approved gene symbols and names, as well as alternative names that have been used in the literature. The public website, www.genenames.org, displays all approved human gene nomenclature within Symbol Reports that contain data curated by HGNC nomenclature advisors with links to related genomic, proteomic, comparative and clinical information.

In addition, this service provides over 1,700 manually curated human gene groups with links to key biomedical resources and relevant publications.

Data can be downloaded in various formats, including a REST service, download files and a custom downloads tool.

Other tools include the Multi-symbol checker tool and the HCOP orthology predictions tool, which aggregates orthology predictions from a range of high-quality resources.

Links are provided to the HGNC’s sister resource, the Vertebrate Gene Nomenclature Committee (VGNC), a repository of approved gene nomenclature for selected vertebrate species: currently chimp, rhesus macaque, dog, cat, cattle, horse and pig.