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

    First MERS case found in the U.S.

    Patient in Indiana had traveled from Arabian Peninsula, where most of the 463 cases of Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome have occurred.

  2. Archaeology

    Written in bone

    Researchers are reconstructing the migrations that carried agriculture into Europe by analyzing DNA from the skeletons of early farmers and the people they displaced.

  3. Genetics

    Farmers assimilated foragers as they spread agriculture

    While some European hunter-gatherers remained separate, others mated with the early farmers that introduced agriculture to the continent.

  4. Genetics

    Cloning produces stem cells from adult skin

    Human embryonic stem cells made using adult cells could enable medical advances such as replacement organs.

  5. Genetics

    Gene activity sets humans apart from extinct hominids

    Differences in gene activity caused by DNA methylation distinguish modern people from Neandertals and Denisovans.

  6. Genetics

    Five mutations could make bird flu spread easily

    Handful of alterations can turn H5N1 bird flu into virus that infects ferrets through the air.

  7. Genetics

    Bank voles provide clue to prion disease susceptibility

    A protein from bank voles makes mice susceptible to disorders that wouldn’t otherwise infect them.

  8. Science & Society

    Misconduct found in Japanese stem cell research

    An investigation into reports describing a type of stem cells called STAP cells has found that the lead researcher is guilty of scientific misconduct.

  9. Life

    First chromosome made synthetically from yeast

    Work with yeast marks the first time scientists have synthesized a chromosome from organisms with complex cells and represents a major step toward lab-created eukaryotic life.

  10. Life

    With Taxol, chromosomes divide and get conquered

    New mechanism discovered for how the cancer drug Taxol works.

  11. Genetics

    Mice lose a gene to drop some weight

    Mice lacking gene have less fat, more muscle and lived longer than normal.

  12. Genetics

    Early Polynesians didn’t go to Americas, chicken DNA hints

    Contamination of ancient chicken DNA may explain previous report linking Polynesians to South America.