{"id":44978,"date":"2017-04-13T14:31:41","date_gmt":"2017-04-13T18:31:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/?p=44978"},"modified":"2017-04-13T15:53:56","modified_gmt":"2017-04-13T19:53:56","slug":"prescription-for-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2017\/04\/13\/prescription-for-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Prescription for success"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Muhammed Hamdan, a graduate student in Wright State’s biomedical engineering program, hopes to launch a startup company to produce a Multi-Sensory Medication Dispenser. (Photos by Will Jones)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cAn award-winning, fully automated medical device that was specifically invented to improve the quality of life for elders and those suffering from diseases by organizing, storing and dispensing medications at the right time and dosage with 98 percent accuracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was the introduction that Muhammed Hamdan used leading into his startup pitch during an Early Risers session at The Entrepreneurs Center in Dayton on March 24.<\/p>\n

Hamdan, a second-year master\u2019s student in the biomedical engineering program at Wright State University, formed a team of engineering students to take a napkin sketch of a novel medical device to a fully functional prototype during their senior year. They launched a senior design project of their own that has produced the Multi-Sensory Medication Dispenser, which could soon result in a Dayton startup company and revolutionize the way patients interact with their medication pills.<\/p>\n

Hamdan\u2019s 64-year-old father takes 13 different medication pills every day due to all the health problems he has, from an open-heart surgery to a kidney transplant.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes my father forgets to take his pills, or he misplaces his bottles and we all start searching for them,\u201d said Hamdan. \u201cSometimes he drops them on the floor and has to throw them away because they\u2019re automatically contaminated, which will cause him to run short on his medications supply by the end of the month. It\u2019s just insane to even consider all the hassle that my father experiences every time he starts fumbling through his many pill boxes. It\u2019s a nightmare, and there must be a more efficient way for patients like him to manage their pills.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hamdan and his teammates started from scratch and spent nine months researching and coming up with the advanced circuitry and computer code that are mainly responsible for the autonomy of their medical device.<\/p>\n

Hamdan worked on the project in a basement lab of the Russ Engineering Center at all hours, sometimes as late as 3 a.m. He taught himself how to write computer code and spent spring break writing more than half of the primary code for the device \u2014 6,421 lines.<\/p>\n

There were so many challenges that Hamdan nearly gave up on the project.<\/p>\n

\u201cUp until the night of our final presentation and demo, I was still in the lab fixing problems with the circuitry and debugging the code. It almost gave me a heart attack,\u201d he said. \u201cBut we didn\u2019t only manage to make it on time, but also competed and won awards with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hamdan presented the idea to business and technology leaders at The Entrepreneurs Center in hopes of finding investors and partners to help him carry the project forward. He walked away with 21 different business cards from medical professionals, software engineers and marketing experts.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was amazing,\u201d he said afterwards. \u201cThis is the connection point. This is the bridge. And this is exactly what I\u2019m here for.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hamdan grew up in Amman, Jordan, and when he moved to Dayton in 2009, he didn\u2019t speak English.<\/p>\n

\u201cBack then,\u201d he said, \u201cI only knew how to say \u2018yes,\u2019 \u2018no\u2019 and \u2018donkey.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

But he worked hard, went on to graduate from Beavercreek High School and then enrolled at Wright State.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Muhammed Hamdan is also an engineering intern at Beavercreek-based Cradle North America Inc. and a graduate research assistant at Wright State\u2019s Ergonomics in Remote Environments Laboratory.<\/p><\/div>\n

In 2016, he obtained his bachelor\u2019s degree in biomedical engineering and is scheduled to graduate later this month with his master\u2019s degree, focusing in medical imaging and signal processing. He has a perfect 4.0 GPA and hasn\u2019t gotten a grade lower than an A since his junior year of high school.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t remember what B\u2019s taste like. It\u2019s been too long,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Hamdan is an engineering intern at Cradle North America Inc., a Beavercreek-based computer software-simulation and services company that specializes in numerical analysis. He is also a graduate research assistant at Wright State\u2019s Ergonomics in Remote Environments Laboratory<\/a>, which conducts research on human-machine interaction and applications in enabling technology for minimally invasive surgery.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always been fascinated with technology and the digital world that we live in,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I really wanted to bring something new from technology to the medical field and help people with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

His dreams are on the verge of coming true with the Multi-Sensory Medication Dispenser.<\/p>\n

The device, whose development is 85 percent complete to be ready for mass production and commercialization, is designed to automatically sort, organize and store medication pills in compartments through a user-friendly and highly accurate interface, and then dispense them at the right time in the correct dosage. The device is equipped with a multi-sensory alarm system and a unique dispensing technique that can handle all types of medications of all shapes, sizes and weights.<\/p>\n

\u201cConsidering that I know exactly where further enhancements can take place and with a little help from senior engineers in the medical device industry, I\u2019m confident that a 100 percent accuracy rate can be easily achieved,\u201d Hamdan said.<\/p>\n

The dispenser would be marketed primary to elderly patients. A secondary market would be hospitals, clinics and nursing homes. He estimates that the device would cost $82 apiece to manufacture, but could command at least $499 because of the hot demand in the $5.5 billion market of medication dispensers.<\/p>\n

\u201cCompared to other devices in the market, this is already a killer deal for the shoppers,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019ve never seen something like it before, and they\u2019ll truly needed it once they hear that it exists.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hamdan said he learned more in four months working on the project than he learned in the previous four years of class lectures.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we showed the campus community the powerful capabilities of the device, its complex circuitry and the advanced code embedded in it,\u201d he said, \u201cthey were wowed!\u201d<\/p>\n

Hamdan said Wright State\u2019s diversity, opportunities and openness make it a special place.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe healthy atmosphere that the College of Engineering and Computer Science<\/a> provides its students with \u2014 whether it is classrooms, office visits or even advising sessions \u2014 enables the students to excel in their fields,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

His advice to students is to take full advantage of the opportunities provided, both on- and off-campus, make all sorts of connections with people they meet and explore what else is out there in their fields. He said it is always worth going the extra mile.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s enough time for everything, if you truly want to make the time for it. Manage your time properly and make it a routine to learn and explore a new thing every day,\u201d he said. \u201cBecause when you\u2019re done with school and ready to jump into the industry, they will want to know what else you\u2019ve been doing besides school. Work hard and pack your resume with all the goodies so you shine in the end.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Muhammed Hamdan hopes to find investors and partners to help him produce a Multi-Sensory Medication Dispenser. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":44986,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[722,4266,743,2060,725,2046,715,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","category-biomedical-industrial-and-human-factors-engineering","category-engineering-computer-science","category-graduate","category-home-news-sidebar","category-international-students","category-news","category-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44978"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45102,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44978\/revisions\/45102"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}