Have an idea for a new venture that you want to pitch and submit to the Entrepreneurship Spring Business Plan competition--the CBIC?

Join us at Idea Pitch Day on Thursday, Feb. 19th in Commons 329 to get ready for our spring Business Plan competition, the Cangialosi Business Innovation Competition (CBIC)! 

The CBIC is a business plan competition where students have an opportunity to submit their business plan and present it to a panel of judges.  The potential rewards are winning funds to help start your business, mentorship from seasoned entrepreneurs, and pitch practice!

Do you have a concept for a new venture or want input on an existing business? Come to Idea Pitch Day, present your idea, and get feedback!  The feedback can help you prepare your idea for submission to the CBIC!

This is a relaxed, low-pressure session designed to help you:

- Refine your concept before submission

- Receive valuable feedback

- Find teammates interested in joining your team

Not ready to pitch? That's okay! Come offer your perspective and perhaps join a team. We hope to see you there!

What?  Idea Pitch Day!

Where?  Commons 329

When?  Thursday, February 19th from 11:30 am-1 pm

Personalized and precise treatments will improve patients’ quality of life in a fast-approaching future driven by AI, wearable tech, and other innovations. UMBC student and faculty researchers led by Mehdi Kiani, a professor in the Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, are at the frontiers of these changes.

They recently teamed up with colleagues at New York Institute of Technology and Pennsylvania State University to develop a system that combines state-of-the-art, millimeter-sized medical implants, computational models, and machine learning to better monitor and treat stomach disorders. A grant from the National Institutes of Health will fund the work through 2029.

The research offers the promise of improving individual medical treatment for gastric disorders such as gastroparesis, a chronic condition causing nausea and unexplained vomiting that affects more than 1.5 million people in the U.S. It also has broader implications for improving our general understanding of how the nervous system controls organs. 

“This type of research is vital, because it addresses fundamental gaps in how we monitor and treat complex organ functions,” says Kiani. “By integrating advanced sensing, modeling, and intelligent control, we can move beyond today’s limited approaches toward precise, adaptive therapies. These innovations have the potential to transform patient care not only for gastric disorders but across many areas of medicine.”

Shrinking medical implants

Kiani has extensive experience developing advanced, wireless medical implants. While at Penn State prior to joining UMBC, Kiani and his team developed a device that could harness energy from magnetic field and ultrasound sources simultaneously. The dual-powered feature is important, the researchers say, because it means the device can harness enough power to operate even as it is shrunk to millimeter-sized dimensions and implanted in a living body, where safety concerns limit the frequency of electromagnetic radiation that can be used to power and communicate with the device. 

Shrinking medical devices makes implanting them less invasive. It also means that many devices can be implanted across a wide area in the body, improving the ability to both monitor and treat disease. 

As part of the new research, Kiani and his colleagues envision a network of multiple tiny devices, called “gastric seeds,” implanted in the submucosal tissue of the stomach. The seeds will wirelessly monitor the electrical signals in the stomach that control its rhythmic contractions. They can also deliver electrical stimulation to correct misfiring signals. 

The seeds will be linked to a wearable band wrapped around the outside of the body, and will use the dual magnetic field and ultrasonic channels to both receive power and transmit and receive data. 

Building a virtual stomach

In addition to developing advanced implantable medical devices, the team will also build a virtual stomach to model the complex electrical and mechanical dynamics of a real stomach. This information, in turn, will help determine how best to use the gastric seeds to deliver treatment. 

The team will first construct an intricate and accurate model on a personal computer, and then use data from that model to train a machine learning model that can operate using the limited computing power of the wearable band. The machine learning model will efficiently interpret the sparse signals from the gastric seeds to determine optimal electrical stimulation treatments in real time. 

The team will test the integrated system on anesthetized rats toward the end of the project. 

Aydin Farajidavar, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at New York Institute of Technology and director of the Integrated Medical Systems Laboratory, and Farnaz Tehranchi, an assistant professor of engineering design and innovation at Penn State, will lead the computational organ model and machine learning model design elements of the project.

For the machine learning dimension of the work, the researchers will use computational models called physics-informed neural networks, which have attracted increasing attention for their ability to combine data-driven learning with fundamental physical laws. “When enhanced with human-like learning strategies, such as self-learning and adaptive optimization, these networks can evolve into significantly more powerful analytical tools,” Tehranchi says.

The advanced framework will provide deeper insights into stomach dynamics and disease progression, supporting more precise and personalized clinical interventions, she explains.

“What excites me most about this research is its truly multidisciplinary nature, bringing together expertise needed to tackle medical challenges no single field can solve alone,” Kiani says. “It’s also inspiring to work with talented students and help shape their careers as we develop technologies that can meaningfully advance patient care and improve quality of life.”

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Medical and Dental School Applicants, the HPEC Interest Deadline is February 15th. Submit your interest form today! See all the info below.

For Medical and Dental School Applicants, the UMBC Health Professions Evaluation Committee's (HPEC) Cohort process - which begins with exercises to help applicants prepare the materials they need to complete their professional school application, and results in a Committee Letter from the HPEC to accompany an applicant's other Letters of Recommendation - is set in motion nearly a year and half before an applicant plans to enter Medical or Dental School. 

The next HPEC Cohort, supporting applicants planning to enter Medical or Dental School in Fall 2027, is about to begin!

11:59 pm on February 15, 2026

Want to turn your 'To-Do' list into a 'Done' list this Friday?

Join us to learn more about WAGs and how we can help you achieve your writing goals! 

GEARS and AOK Library presents Writing Accountability Groups for Spring 2026! 

• What: Writing Accountability Groups (WAGs) are voluntary and facilitated by fellow UMBC graduate students.
• Who: WAGs are composed of a group of graduate students (usually 4–8 participants per group) interested in developing writing habits and accountability.
• Why: Develop habits of writing every day for a short, manageable period of time by setting goals and being accountable to WAG peers.
• When: WAG groups meet once a week for 60–90 minutes for 10–12 weeks. The group finds a weekly time mutually convenient to all group members.
  
• Where: The group decides on a mutually convenient location to meet, whether in person or online via WebEx or another videoconferencing platform.