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

    Flu spreads via airborne droplets

    Hand washing goes only so far in retarding flu transmission.

  2. Life

    Genes weakly linked to education level

    A search of more than 2 million DNA locations in more than 125,000 people finds a weak, and perhaps dubious, association with schooling.

  3. Life

    Life Support

    Studies reveal the placenta’s crucial role in healthy pregnancies.

  4. Life

    Tests show that deadly flu could spread among people

    Experiment shows that new influenza virus transmits through air between ferrets, a common experimental stand-in for humans.

  5. Life

    Experimental vaccine protects against many flu viruses

    Ferrets that receive shot can fight off variety of influenza strains.

  6. Life

    Viruses and mucus team up to ward off bacteria

    Phages may play an unforeseen role in immune protection, researchers find.

  7. Humans

    Highlights from the Biology of Genomes meeting

    Highlights from the genome biology meeting held May 7-11 in Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y., include an enormous tree's enormous genome, genes for strong-swimming sperm, and back-to-Africa migration some 3,000 years ago.

  8. Animals

    Tamed fox shows domestication’s effects on the brain

    Gene activity changes accompany doglike behavior in foxes bred over more than 50 years.

  9. Life

    How a sea anemone grows its tentacles

    Creature's cells change shape to form appendages.

  10. Life

    Genetic fossils betray hepatitis B’s ancient roots

    Modern bird genomes reveal evidence that virus is at least 82 million years old.

  11. Life

    Mutation makes H5N1 flu lose its grip

    Laboratory-added genetic change makes avian influenza unable to bind to bird cells.

  12. Humans

    Spreading a scientific way of life

    The Science Life.