William French Anderson (born December 31, 1936) is an American physician, geneticist and molecular biologist.

In 1990 he was the first person to succeed in carrying out gene therapy by treating a 4-year-old girl suffering from severe combined immunodeficiency (a disorder called "bubble boy disease").

He won an Honorable Mention in the Westinghouse Science Talent Search for a project demonstrating how Roman numerals could be used in arithmetical procedures.

Anderson went to Harvard College, where he published several papers as an undergraduate: his high school work on Roman numerals in classical philology in 1956,[4] arithmetical operations using Minoan linear B numerals in the American Journal of Archaeology in 1958,[5] a physical chemistry research paper in the Journal of the American Chemical Society in 1958,[6] and a research study on the effects of irradiation on DNA in the Journal of Cellular and Comparative Physiology in 1961.

[7] In its March 19, 1956 issue, Time magazine called Anderson a "Harvard Prodigy" for his research work on ancient numerical systems.

[8] He graduated from Harvard in 1958, and spent two years at Trinity College, Cambridge University (England), where he obtained an M.A., worked in the laboratory of Francis Crick, won a Full Blue on the track team, and met, and in 1961 married Kathy, who was a fellow medical student at Cambridge.

Anderson graduated in 1963 and spent a year internship in pediatric medicine at Children's Hospital in Boston.

[9] Anderson then spent two years, 1965–1967, under the tutelage of Marshall Nirenberg in a laboratory at the National Institutes of Health, where he helped finish the decipherment of the genetic code.

Nirenberg rewarded his efforts by allowing him to make the first public presentation of the final genetic code before an audience of approximately 2,000 scientists at the April 1966 meeting of FASEB in Atlantic City.

Over his career, he has published more than 400 research papers, 39 editorials, and 5 books, and has received numerous awards and honors including 5 honorary doctorate degrees.

As Anderson began his own career, protein synthesis in bacteria was at the forefront of molecular biology research.

In order to isolate the predicted molecule "messenger RNA", a cell-free protein synthesizing system of mRNA-free ribosomes was needed.

[15][16] As a first approach for developing a human gene therapy procedure, standard microinjection techniques were modified to permit the injection of DNA plasmids into the nucleus of mammalian cells.

In 1984, Anderson published a major review in Science in which he analyzed the "Prospects for Human Gene Therapy"[20] and concluded that the most promising approach was to use retroviral vectors as a delivery vehicle.

He immediately established a close, long-term collaboration with one of the top retroviral vector scientists: Eli Gilboa, then at Princeton.

Together they developed vectors that could efficiently carry a gene package into mouse or human cells in culture.

[21][22] The most efficient vector, N2, carrying a neomycin resistance gene, was used to transduce mouse bone marrow cells.

[29] Anderson and Blaese carried out the first gene therapy protocol, on a 4-year-old girl, named Ashanthi DeSilva, who was critically ill with adenosine deaminase deficiency severe combined immunodeficiency disease (ADA SCID).

This new journal published not only original scientific research papers but also articles on ethical and regulatory issues relating to gene therapy.

[34][35] A thorough immune status follow-up was done after 12 years: she remained healthy with 20% of her lymphocytes still carrying an active retroviral ADA gene – a sufficient percentage to ensure immunologic protection.

Anderson became a visiting associate in applied physics at Caltech from 2001 to 2006, while maintaining his USC positions, and succeeded in developing an improved microfluidic valve that was patented and has become the core of soft polymer lab-on-a-chip devices.

During the 12 years that Anderson has been in prison, IL-12 has been shown to potentially be a very important adjuvant drug in cancer treatment.

[citation needed] After 10 years, the FBI allowed Anderson to make the report public, and it was published with a new foreword by Paladin Press in 2006.