September 24, 2021, Baltimore, MD – Ortuvo, a Materic company that develops specialty inks, screen printing and devices for 3D printing of cells, recently completed mentoring Baltimore City high school interns in partnership with local youth empowerment social enterprise, Dent Education.

This internship program providing mentees opportunities to learn and experience hands-on design and engineering work alongside Ortuvo scientists. Ortuvo scientists, including James Dolgin, Product Development specialist, mentored high school students – Mathushan Mathivannan, Sophie Tallamraju and Nyla Wilson – on a 3D bioprinting project. 3D Bioprinting is a cutting-edge technology that can create artificial meats while replacing lab rats in research.

As part of this work, Dolgin taught students about the technology as they designed, packaged and assembled screen printing kits for classroom experiments that could grow yeast to patterns. The students assembled 17 screen printing kits, which are now being tested by professors and teachers throughout Baltimore City.

The high school makers are youth in the Dent Education’s Dentership program, an internship where experienced Dent youth apply their innovative, design thinking and creative skills to solve problems with local startups and organizations while learning hands-on skills like design and engineering. Over this past summer, the students learned skills in a range of disciplines, including life sciences, graphic design, image analysis and manufacturing.

“I learned how to design, create and distribute products through dent and Ortuvo by creating the Bio-printing kits,” Mathusan said. “I had a lot of first-hand experience that is priceless to me and I will probably use it for the rest of my life. As I got to work at Ortuvo, and learned more about it, I really found everything interesting and fun. I feel like the work doesn’t feel like work when I am doing it and time flies by fast. It is something that I feel like I am good at and can actually make an impact.”

“Dent Education students are truly remarkable and we’re thrilled to have had the chance to work with them as mentors,” said Stephen Farias, PhD, CEO with Ortuvo. “Our Dent mentees focused this summer on learning about leading-edge industries and products that our team is engaged in developing and bringing to the market.”

About Dent Education:
Dent Education is a 501(c)3 non-profit, based in Baltimore, MD, that empowers under-resourced youth to become change-makers, entrepreneurs, and creatives in “learn to earn” programs. In addition to real-world programs like Denternship, Dent students make products to meet community needs in Made@Dent, a youth co-owned social enterprise. If you’re interested in hiring a Dentern for Summer 2022, reach out to Micky Wolf at micky@denteducation.org. Learn more: www.denteducation.org and www.madeatdent.com

About Ortuvo:
Ortuvo is a technology company, based in Baltimore, MD, that develops specialty inks, screen printing and devices for 3D printing of cells. Ortuvo is part of a group of advanced materials companies within Materic, LLC. Learn more: www.ortuvo.com

About Materic:
Based in Baltimore, MD, Materic custom designs and manufactures advanced materials. We apply our expertise in electrospinning, nanoparticle separation, textile treatments, 3D printing materials, specialty inks and microencapsulation to our own product lines as well as taking on custom manufacturing projects for our customers. Learn more: www.matericgroup.com

Media Contact:
Ken Berlack
Materic
ken.berlack@earlycharm.com