Towards the end of November, Nicole Black realized that she was no longer a child.

The 2010 Henry Ford II High School graduate turned 29 on November 22 and was faced with the reality of being in her late twenties.

Days later, on December 1, she found out that she had been on Forbes’ prestigious 30-under-30 list for manufacturing and industry. She can joke now that she barely went under the wire. But, overall, to make the list ends up being a nice birthday present.

“It’s exciting. I never would have expected it. There is a whirlwind of emotions,” said Black. “I had just turned 29 a week ago. But I accomplished something that didn’t. ‘wouldn’t have been possible in the future (get the prize). The most exciting part is getting to know the product and the company. Really promoting a product that will hopefully get to market within the next couple of years is really exciting. ”

The product is a PhonoGraft, a new biomimetic and biodegradable device for the repair of eardrums. Black’s product is grafted into the eardrum to help repair it. Once inserted, the patient’s own cells attach and collect on the graft, starting repair of the eardrum. Over time, as the eardrum regenerates, the artificial graft biodegrades and disappears. The PhonoGraft is developed using 3D printing technology.

The current ear drum repair procedure involves making an incision through the eardrum to remove material from the patient’s body, an operation that can take up to eight hours. Black said the PhonoGraft insertion process can take as little as 20 minutes.

Black said animal studies have been done with the PhonoGraft on chinchillas because they have large eardrums, which results in high hearing rates and in some cases and at certain frequencies even better hearing than before. surgery.

After graduating from Henry Ford II at Sterling Heights, a community schools building in Utica, Black did her undergraduate education at Boston University, where she graduated in 2014. She then attended Harvard University, where she obtained her doctorate in 2020.

At Harvard, she joined Harvard Innovation Labs, where she created a company called Beacon Bio in early 2021 to develop the PhonoGraft. In June 2021, Black sold Beacon Bio to a company called Desktop Metal for $ 10 million, shifting his team to Desktop’s health department. Upon the sale of her business, Black was appointed vice president of biomaterials and innovation for Desktop Health, a division of Desktop Metal, a company that sells 3D printers and the materials to make 3D products. The company will now manufacture the device it created. A printer called 3D Bioplotter by Envison Tech will be used to manufacture its device. She said the sale of her business made sense in her efforts to bring the PhonoGraft to market.

“We were trying to raise investment funds. And it was very difficult, ”Black said. “We decided that Desktop Metal was the right solution. They give us access to capital and resources. Going through the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) process was very costly in money. We’ve been working on this for six years, and ultimately we wanted to get it to the patients. So it made sense to partner with them, and we’re already using their printer for that.

At Boston University, Black said she was torn between going to medical school and doing more engineering. She said that although she loved medicine, she didn’t want to work with one person at a time, she wanted to help a lot of people at the same time. She became motivated to develop devices and the materials to create them. And she found ways to develop some really interesting new fabrics.

In 2013, while at Boston University, the Boston Marathon bombing occurred. She learned that one of the most common injuries to runners and others around the blast site was perforation of the eardrum. Once she came up with the idea of ​​developing the transplant, she was assisted by a doctorate. advisers at Harvard to develop the product.

“I was really interested in the idea that you could design a scaffold for any defect and basically create a new way of growing tissue and regenerating it on their own,” she said.

Black’s plans call for the PhonoGraft to be submitted to the FDA in 2023, with the hope that it will be cleared for sale and distribution in 2024.

She now lives in Somerville, Massachusetts. While a student at Boston University, she returned home to Macomb County several times to speak to students at the Utica Center for Mathematics, Science, and Technology. She has served as a mentor for STEM programs and spoke about engineering career opportunities beyond the automotive industry. A former member of the ThunderChickens robotics team at Henry Ford II, she also mentors local robotics teams and does hands-on engineering demonstrations in Massachusetts. She said she would like to go home to do more with UCS students after the COVID-19 pandemic ends.

“I am really passionate about raising awareness about STEM,” she said.