Prof James Edwards introduces the 10th Symposium on Biodegradable Metals, which was held at the University of Oxford for the first time. The conference was organised by Profs Diego Mantovani, Frank Witte and Yufeng Zheng, and brings together people from around the world to present their research on this topic. The multinational and interdisciplinary teams develop screws, plates, cardiac stents and other medical devices which can be implanted in the body to aid healing, but which then dissolve away once they’ve outlived their usefulness, preventing the need for further operations to remove them. The conference was held at St Catherine’s College, University of Oxford, and consisted of a series of lectures and presentations, a poster session, as well as time for networking to discuss future collaboration.