BATON ROUGE - Students and employees with Southern University's College of Sciences and Engineering are making reusable masks for health care workers treating coronavirus patients.

The university says group of students and staff members are running a full lab of 40  3-D printers manufacturing parts for the masks. The lab in the P.B.S. Pinchback building has already produced nearly 2,000 masks.

“I saw an article on Facebook talking about people using 3-D printing for masks,” said Jason Chang, director of information technology at the college. “I said, ‘We (Southern) can really help our community.’”

The lab and all materials in it, including those to make the reusable masks, were made possible by a $2M grant Entergy presented to the university in 2018. The gift was matched by Gov. John Bel Edwards for a total of $4M to strengthen STEM disciplines and to upgrade facilities.

You can read more about the printing operation here:  http://www.subr.edu/news/college-of-sciences-and-engineering-produces-3d-masks-for-healthcare-professionals-in-response-to-covid19