 Harley took him up on this offer and hired Andrews as Geron's Director of Molecular Biology.Three months and seventeen days later, Andrews' team successfully cloned the RNA component of telomerase ("hTR").For this discovery, Andrews and members of his team were awarded second place for "National Inventor of the Year" in 1997 by the Intellectual Property Owners Association (first place having been awarded for the invention of protease inhibitors.)