The building bridges initiative in health sciences and medical education: Fostering connections between Brazil and the United States.

Building Bridges is an outreach initiative that has focused upon effectuating increased communication among biomedical scientists, educators, and students in Brazil and the United States-the countries with the greatest number of medical schools in the Americas. It has been a developing project over the last 6 years, and has involved faculty, students, and civic leaders from many universities in the two countries. This Special Issue of The Anatomical Record is a continuation of the Building Bridges initiative, and brings to the fore attention onto some of the creative research being done in biomedical science, evolutionary science, biomedical education, and current health topics in Brazil. Fostering open routes of communication among scientists is a core humanistic value that is at the heart of progress and is the center of our actions. This paper reviews the history of the Building Bridges Initiative.