Tina Hesman Saey

Tina Hesman Saey

Senior Writer, Molecular Biology

Senior writer Tina Hesman Saey is a geneticist-turned-science writer who covers all things microscopic and a few too big to be viewed under a microscope. She is an honors graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where she did research on tobacco plants and ethanol-producing bacteria. She spent a year as a Fulbright scholar at the Georg-August University in Göttingen, Germany, studying microbiology and traveling.  Her work on how yeast turn on and off one gene earned her a Ph.D. in molecular genetics at Washington University in St. Louis. Tina then rounded out her degree collection with a master’s in science journalism from Boston University. She interned at the Dallas Morning News and Science News before returning to St. Louis to cover biotechnology, genetics and medical science for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. After a seven year stint as a newspaper reporter, she returned to Science News. Her work has been honored by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, the Endocrine Society, the Genetics Society of America and by journalism organizations.

All Stories by Tina Hesman Saey

  1. Genetics

    New genetic sleuthing tools helped track down the Golden State Killer suspect

    DNA sleuths may have adapted new techniques for identifying John and Jane Does to track down a serial killer suspect.

  2. Genetics

    Study debunks fishy tale of how rabbits were first tamed

    A popular tale about rabbit domestication turns out to be fiction.

  3. Neuroscience

    Website invites you to probe a 3-D human brain

    Getting up close to the human brain is easy with BrainFacts.org’s interactive organ.

  4. Genetics

    CRISPR gene editor could spark immune reaction in people

    Immune reactions could shut down CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing.

  5. Genetics

    CRISPR gene editing moved into new territory in 2017

    Scientists edited viable human embryos with CRISPR/Cas9 this year.

  6. Life

    Not all of a cell’s protein-making machines do the same job

    Ribosomes may switch up their components to specialize in building proteins.

  7. Life

    Mini brains may wrinkle and fold just like ours

    Brain organoids show how ridges and wrinkles may form.

  8. Health & Medicine

    When tumors fuse with blood vessels, clumps of breast cancer cells can spread

    Breast cancer tumors may merge with blood vessels to help the cancer spread.

  9. Genetics

    CRISPR/Cas9 can reverse multiple diseases in mice

    A new gene therapy uses CRISPR/Cas9 to turn on dormant genes.

  10. Genetics

    Bats in China carry all the ingredients to make a new SARS virus

    Viruses infecting bats could recombine to re-create SARS.

  11. Science & Society

    Parents may one day be morally obligated to edit their baby’s genes

    The CRISPR debate is moving from “should we or shouldn’t we?” to “do we have to?”

  12. Genetics

    Bones show Dolly’s arthritis was normal for a sheep her age

    Cloning didn’t cause the famous sheep to age prematurely.