Hela Bursztyn-Pettegrew was born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1929 and became a citizen of Colombia in 1936. She received her Degree (1950) of "Licenciada en Bacteriologia" from the Javeriana University in Bogota, Colombia. Her thesis was "Inoculation of Rabies Virus in Chick Embryo and Its Utilization as Immunity Power" and she completed post graduate courses (1955-1956) in Immunology and Biochemistry at Michigan State University. She was employed by Syntex Research in their Department of Molecular Biology from 1980 through 1992. Her previous work experience includes employment at the Department of Bacteriology at Columbia University (N.Y.) (1951-1953); Chief of the Bacteriology Laboratories (1953-1955) at the Colombian Institute of Social Security; Professor of Bacteriology and Chief of the Clinical Lab (1957-1959) at the University of Andes (Bogota); the Institute of Cardiology (1959-1960) in Mexico; the Cancer Research Institute (1960-1962) and Genetics Research (1962-1964) at Columbia University (N.Y.); the Suisse Institute of Cancer (1964) in Lausanne, Switzerland; the Biochemistry Section at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel; the Department of Medical Microbiology (1967-1968) at U.C.L.A.; Senior Research Assistant and Lab Manager (1968-1978) in the Department of Genetics at the Stanford University School of Medicine; and in the Department of Biochemistry (1978-1979) at Stanford University.

Her publications include "The determination of deoxyribonucleic acid and of cell number in brain" (1964); "The genetic factors in radiation resistance of Bacillus subtilis" (1965); "The effect of hormones on DNA synthesis and cell number in the developing chick and rat brain" (1971); "Transfectability of rough strains of Salmonella typhimurium" (1975); and most recently, "Overexpression, purification, and characterization of human recombinant 15-Lipoxygenase" (1993).

Dr. Bursztyn-Pettegrew resides in Palo Alto, Calfornia, with her husband John.

This collection (1946-1993, n.d.) contains a curriculum vitae, certificates, correspondence, publications, newspaper articles, an autobiography, and photographs. These papers document the extent and variety of Bursztyn-Pettegrew's career and include her education certificates, reprint copies of her publications, and letters of reference from the institutions where she has been employed.

The remainder of the collection details her family background and contains an autobiography written by her mother, Chaja Bursztyn, articles concerning her sister, sculptor Feliza Bursztyn, and photographs of Chaja and Jacob Bursztyn, Feliza Bursztyn, and Hela and John Bursztyn-Pettegrew.