Jay Short
Executive Vice President,
Business Development

Jay Short is a founder of Diversa Corporation (now Verenium) where he served in multiple roles including CEO, President, Chief Technology Officer, and Director for the company over his 11 year tenure.  Dr. Short led the company in raising over $500 million in the IPO and in committed funding from corporate partners.  Before joining Diversa Corporation, Dr. Short served as President of Stratacyte, Inc., the first company to express libraries of antibodies in bacteria, and Vice President of Research & Development and Operations for Stratagene Cloning Systems, a molecular biology company based in La Jolla, California.

Dr. Short earned his Ph.D. in Biochemistry at Case Western Reserve University and his BA in chemistry with honors at Taylor University.

Dr. Short received San Diego’s 2001 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award in Health Sciences and was the recipient of two first place awards granted by the University of California, San Diego, Connect Innovative Product Program.  In addition, Dr. Short’s grant program was selected as the top one percent of research programs in the United States for commercializing new products funded by the SBIR program.

Dr. Short has authored more than 100 publications and is named inventor of over 100 issued patents and several hundred pending patents.   He has served on the U.S. National Research Council panel for Chemical Science and Technology at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and numerous other governmental, grant and journal review committees and boards.  In 2003 he received the ABL Innovations in HealthCare Gold award for antibody discovery and evolution technologies, and in 2004 he received the Henry F. Whalen, Jr. Award for Business Development by the American Chemical Society.

Currently, Dr. Short serves as a Director for Invitrogen, (NASDAQ:  IVGN), Senomyx (NASDAQ:  SNMX), Nventa Biopharmaceuticals Corporation, (TORONTO: NVNBF), and Ciris Energy.  In addition, he is a member of YPO and founder and co-owner of Capia IP, LLC.  He is also currently the Founder, President and Chairman of the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation, principal of BioAtla and an advisor to City National Bank, Genalyte, the Division of Biology at UCSD, and Celunol Corporation.