NC A&T State University Chancellor Harold Martin speaks from experience – it’s no fun carrying steel bolts inside you long after broken bones have healed.

But with help from the National Science Foundation, biomaterials researchers at A&T have developed new materials to bond fractures that then degrade and disappear when their work is done.

“We’ve discovered some substantial new materials that biodegrade,” Martin says in the accompanying video. “They are very strong materials – as strong as the steel bolts that have been used in the past.”