William French Anderson, a renowned gene-therapy scientist at the University of Southern California, was convicted today of sexually abusing a girl who once took tae kwon do lessons from him. According to the Associated Press, Dr. Anderson, who is 69 years old, was convicted by a state jury of one count of continuous sexual abuse of a child under the age of 14 and three counts of committing a lewd act on a child. He faces as much as 22 years in prison when he is sentenced, in November, and the presiding judge in a Los Angeles courtroom jailed him at once. He had been free on bail during the trial.

Dr. Anderson was a pioneer in gene therapy when, in 1990, he performed the first gene-therapy experiment on a human being. He is currently on leave as a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology and pediatrics, and director of the Gene Therapy Laboratories, at the university’s Keck School of Medicine. He has written hundreds of research articles and received dozens of awards (The Chronicle, August 9, 2004).

Dr. Anderson’s lawyer vowed to appeal the conviction. “We will not rest until justice is done,” he said, according to the AP. The university did not have an immediate reaction to the verdict.