Alex “Eli” Pottash was awarded a Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellowship to pursue his research project, “Enabling Inhalation of mRNA Therapies to Treat Lung Disease,” with Professors Yinon Rudich and Gideon Schreiber at the Weizmann Institute of Science. His research aims to solve underlying problems in mRNA delivery and could be adapted to the treatment of lung cancer, infection, and other lung diseases.

Eli completed his BS and PhD in bioengineering at the University of Maryland, College Park. In his graduate work under Dr. Steven Jay, he investigated the loading of RNA into extracellular vesicles, which are cell-derived nanoparticles used as vehicles for gene therapy. In addition to the technical aspect of his project, Eli is interested in how culture shapes the invention and acceptance of technologies, such as inhalable drugs.