AOHUPO was established about 18 years ago through the efforts of the late Akira Tsugita (Japan), Richard Simpson (Australia), Young-Ki Paik (Korea) and Kazuyuki Nakamura (Japan).Since its formation, AOHUPO has grown rapidly to include 17 member countries and with each country being represented by one council member, who is usually an office bearer from the country proteomics or protein society. The organization is led by an executive council (EC) that consists of President, two Vice-Presidents, Secretary General and immediate past President for a period of 3 years. The elected past presidents of AOHUPO are Richard Simpson (Australia), Young-Ki Paik (Korea), Kazuyuki Nakamura (Japan), and Fuchu He (China).

The main aim of AOHUPO is to promote and coordinate the activities of the regional proteomics community, and with this in mind, it has firmly established the tradition of organizing a highly successful biennial conference being hosted by different countries in the region. The inaugural conference was held in Seoul (2002), and this was followed by Taipei (2004), Singapore (2006), Cairns (2008), Hyderabad (2010), Beijing (2012), Bangkok (2014), and Sun Moon Lake (2016). The 9th AOHUPO conference is scheduled to be held in Osaka (2018). It is notable that members of the AOHUPO community also participated in a group project led by Bill Jordan (New Zealand) on Membrane Proteome Initiative (MPI), the results of which were published in Proteomics (8, 3920-23, 2008). Two more initiatives centred on chemical proteomics and nuclear proteome led by two prominent scientists HoJeong Kwon and Jun Qin respectively are also open to participation by the AOHUPO community.

Significantly, AOHUPO had also contributed to the hosting of five successful HUPO Congresses in the recent past. These were in Beijing (2004), Seoul (2007), Sydney (2010), Yokohama (2013) and Taipei (2016). In the annual election of HUPO council members, AOHUPO helped to identify and nominate suitable diversity candidates from this region to the HUPO Nomination and Election Committee (NEC) for their consideration and endorsement by HUPO members. Moving forward, AOHUPO and its council members are looking forward to playing an even more active role in HUPO affairs.