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Sacramento business helps flatten the curve with 3D printed test swabs

Master Laboratories has also begun production of full-face shields to provide added personal protection to both medical and dental personnel nationwide.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Governor Newsom wants to increase the number of tests for coronavirus (COVID-19) throughout the state and to meet the need, those tests will require more nasal swabs which are in short supply. 

That shortage is a problem Michael Kulwiec says he can solve. 

Kulwiec owns Master Laboratories, a Sacramento company that has been in the dental manufacturing industry for over 70 years. 

“We have a good amount of 3D printers and we were able to task them to making swabs,” says Kulweic.

The 3D printers used at Master laboratories are not your average 3D printers. They use a special resin and a completely different printing technology. 

Kulweic’s company manufactures the swabs, but the swab themselves were designed by Envision TEC owner Al Siblani, an inventor who contracted COVID-19 earlier this year. 

“In early March while he was recuperating, he realized there’s an opportunity with 3D technology,” says Kulweic.

Siblani’s swab design is FDA approved and already being printed by other companies across the US. 

“Right now it’s being used in the city of New York as we speak,” says Kulweic. 

He says Master Laboratories in Sacramento has the right 3D printers and Federal approval to start filling the needs of California’s Covid-19 test swab shortage. 

“We have the capacity both here in Northern California and our national network to print 10’s of thousands a day," says Kulweic. "The actual capacity is over a million a day."

In addition to the nasal swabs, Master Laboratories has also begun production of full-face shields to provide added personal protection to both medical and dental personnel nationwide.

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