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. Health & Medicine

    Choosing white or whole-grain bread may depend on what lives in your gut

    Gut microbes determine how people’s blood sugar levels respond to breads.

  2. Life

    When it comes to the flu, the nose has a long memory

    Mice noses have specialty immune cells with long memories.

  3. Genetics

    Jumping genes play a big role in what makes us human

    Jumping genes have been a powerful force in human evolution.

  4. Health & Medicine

    Breast cancer cells spread in an already-armed mob

    Source tumors may already contain the mutations that drive aggressive cancer spread.

  5. Science & Society

    Fox experiment is replaying domestication in fast-forward

    How to Tame a Fox recounts a nearly 60-year experiment in Russia to domesticate silver foxes.

  6. Genetics

    Ancient DNA bucks tale of how the horse was tamed

    DNA from ancient horses reveals early domestication involved plenty of stallions.

  7. Health & Medicine

    Faux womb keeps preemie lambs alive

    A device can keep premature lambs alive for a month in womblike conditions.

  8. Earth

    50 years ago, continental drift began to gain acceptance

    Half a century later, plate tectonics is well-established but still an active field of research.

  9. Genetics

    Gene knockouts in people provide drug safety, effectiveness clues

    People naturally lacking certain genes give clues about drug safety and efficacy, a study in Pakistanis shows.

  10. Life

    Cells’ stunning complexity on display in a new online portal

    A new online explorer tool from the Allen Institute for Cell Science shows 3-D models of cell interiors.

  11. Genetics

    Cephalopods may have traded evolution gains for extra smarts

    Editing RNA may give cephalopods smarts, but there’s a trade-off.

  12. Health & Medicine

    Engineered immune cells boost leukemia survival for some

    Engineered immune cells can extend life for some leukemia patients.