Kickstart: Taking 3D printing beyond face masks

3D printers have been pushed into service to make thousands of headbands for face shields since the coronavirus pandemic spread worldwide.

Now they're finding use filling another gap in the medical response: making swabs for COVID tests.

The swabs need to be long and flexible, and production already is moving at full speed at the limited number of companies who had produced them, including Teel Plastics Inc.
Resolution Medical of Fridley, Minn., is using Carbon 3D printers to make nasal swabs and San Francisco-based Origin is working with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center to provide swabs using its medical-grade 3D printing system.

"The nation's need for rapid and widespread testing for COVID-19 has been hampered by a widespread shortage of the swabs needed for testing," said Dr. Ramy Arnaout, associate director of BIDMC's clinical Microbiology laboratories. "Innovations in 3D printing hold real promise for our collective efforts to diagnose and treat COVID-19, as well as to flatten the transmission curve."

Remember when we used to travel for business conferences?

Well, add another event to the list of virtual meetings as the Center for Automotive Research has moved its Management Briefing Seminars, scheduled for August, to a solely virtual edition.

The event had already been shrinking prior to COVID-19. What had once been five full days in Traverse City, Mich., featuring automotive leaders including Bill Ford and Akio Toyoda, was already down to what had been scheduled for three days in 2020.

It will now be two days, Aug. 4-5, online.

You can find updates on this and other events via our COVID-19 events tracker.

Granted, these big events could be big expenditures, but also great opportunities for small companies to interact with customers and suppliers. At MBS, you'd frequently see a mold maker getting a chance to speak with the CEO of a global supplier one-on-one over coffee (or on the golf course). Virtual events simply don't offer those personal connections.

And I wonder, once the world opens back up again, will we see the same kind of major conferences taking place? I sure hope we do.

How about we take a moment here to think about bright futures, rather than what isn't happening?

This week's print issue of Plastics News features the 2020 class of Rising Stars in the plastics industry. We're also posting expanded profiles with all 25 class members online this week. (They'll be posted at plasticsnews.com five profiles per day, alphabetically.)

This year's class includes chemists and engineers, marketing officials and sustainability coordinators. One of them already has six patents to her name. Some grew up in the plastics industry, others found themselves drawn to it without any expectations.

One thing in common? They all show just how wrong those stereotypes of millennials are.