French Anderson

William French Anderson (born December 31, 1936) is an American physician, geneticist and molecular biologist. He is considered a pioneer of gene therapy. He graduated from Harvard College in 1958 and from Harvard Medical School in 1963. In 1990, he claimed to be the first person ever to succeed in gene therapy of a 4-year-old girl suffering from SCID (a form of an immuno-deficiency disorder called "bubble boy disease"). His claims may have been exaggerated, albeit, he was not alone. In 2006, he was convicted of sexual abuse of a minor and in 2007 was sentenced to 14 years in prison.

Anderson was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His father was a civil engineer and his mother was a journalist, writer and university professor. According to his biography, he stuttered. He eventually overcame his impediment and was recognized for his performance in track, theater, and debate. Anderson was a 1954 graduate of Tulsa Central High School.

He entered Harvard University, where he became a track star and published several papers, including one outlining a method for arithmetic operations using Maya numerals. His school teacher had written a letter to the Harvard classics department and Prof. Sterling Dow arranged that the Oklahoma school boy be admitted to Harvard College and a freshman's paper published in Classical Philology (51, 1956). Following a year abroad in Cambridge, where he met his future wife Kathy Duncan, he returned to Harvard, to the Medical School, accompanied by Kathy. They married in 1961 and both graduated a few years later.

Anderson was employed by the National Institutes of Health, beginning a search to find ways to repair defective genes. Using microinjection methods, the approach was slow and inefficient. After abandoning this approach, his contributions to this field were non-existent until, in 1984, Richard C. Mulligan of MIT published a method to insert genes by using a retrovirus. Dr. Anderson wanted to test this theory with a human disease. In 1988 his proposal to the Human Gene Therapy Subcommittee was denied, however his request for a hearing before the full committee proceeded, and the trial was approved.

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