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. Life

    Reviving extinct DNA

    For the first time, scientists have resurrected a piece of DNA from an extinct animal — the Tasmanian tiger. The researchers engineered mice with a piece of the long-gone marsupial's DNA that turns on a collagen gene in cartilage-producing cells.

  2. Life

    Sepsis buster

    The Ashwell receptor, a sugar-binding protein on liver cells, helps fight sepsis by clearing blood-clotting factors. The discovery clears up years of mystery surrounding the receptor’s function.

  3. Life

    Identifying viable embryos

    New genetic tests to distinguish viable from nonviable embryos may help eliminate risky multiple births from fertility procedures.

  4. Health & Medicine

    Sharing valuable real estate

    Human brains rewire when people lose a sense, but a new study of people who have regained vision shows that the rewired areas retain their old abilities.

  5. Life

    Epic Genetics – Sidebar

    Epigenetic changes can be undone in some circumstances.

  6. Life

    Epic Genetics

    The way genes are packaged by "epigenetic" changes may play a major role in the risk of addiction, depression and other mental disorders.

  7. Health & Medicine

    Leaving a mark

    Child abuse may leave chemical marks on the brains of people who later kill themselves.

  8. Life

    DNA tweak no good for diabetics

    A genetic variation that increases levels of a blood-building protein also ups the risk of developing complications from diabetes.

  9. A moment on the lips …

    Adults may be stuck with the fat they have. A study suggests the number of fat cells doesn't change with weight gain or loss.

  10. Life

    Bring out your dead cells

    A protein called Six-Microns-Under turns certain fruit fly brain cells into undertakers to clear away dead neighbors.

  11. Health & Medicine

    Friend or foe? Drunk, the brain can’t tell

    Intoxicated brains can’t discern between threatening and safe situations.

  12. Health & Medicine

    Let there be light

    Researchers report restoring vision to people with a rare, genetic form of blindness. A different technique helped blind mice see again and could bring back some sight in people with macular degeneration, retinitis pigmentosa or other blinding diseases.