As any individual or organization develops, it inevitably spends some time looking forward and, just as importantly, looking back to its origins. Therefore, as the Biomedical Sciences Exchange Program contemplates almost a quarter of a century of activity, it is rewarding to look at the result of the cooperative energies of John Boylan and Hilmar Stolte, cofounders of the innovative program. In creating a small but flexible exchange experience for advanced students in the life sciences between Germany and the United States, they built a two way bridge that continues to contribute to international understanding as well as to scientific progress.

However, any bridge is only as secure as its underpinnings, and the Biomedical Science Exchange Program has been fortunate to have two such foundations in the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory in Salsbury Cove, Maine, and in the Medizinische Hochschule Hannover in Hannover, Germany. Both have been supportive in varying and equally important ways and they continue to provide a base of operations on each side of the Atlantic. The Hannover setting has provided a central location for the recruitment of European students and has provided access to valuable contacts with professional German colleagues in addition to contributing administrative support whereas the rustic and informal location of the MDIBL presents a very real physical contrast to the urban setting off the MHH but offers the same high quality of professional expertise.

This program has been so productive that yet another related effort is in development, integrating all former BMEP activities, known as the International Academy of the Life Sciences (IALS). It aims to promote further initiatives across the disciplines of life sciences, law, management and technology by means of conferences, seminars, postgraduate training, white papers and feasibility studies.

Thus, in acknowledging the founding institutions of this international "transatlantic bridge", we wish to gratefully dedicate this account of the activities of the BMEP class of 2002-2003 to the