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

    Here’s what you need to know about the COVID-19 vaccines

    There are still important unknowns about how Pfizer’s vaccine and others will work once they get injected in people around the world.

  2. Health & Medicine

    The ‘last mile’ for COVID-19 vaccines could be the biggest challenge yet

    The need for cold storage and booster shots could create problems for distributing coronavirus vaccines to nearly everyone in the world.

  3. Health & Medicine

    The U.K. is the first country to authorize a fully tested COVID-19 vaccine

    Pfizer will deliver the first of 40 million doses of its coronavirus vaccine promised to the United Kingdom in the coming days.

  4. Health & Medicine

    Oxford and AstraZeneca say their COVID-19 vaccine works too

    A third major vaccine, which may be easier to distribute than others, appears to prevent disease and maybe transmission of the coronavirus.

  5. Health & Medicine

    Here’s why COVID-19 vaccines like Pfizer’s need to be kept so cold

    Both Pfizer and Moderna built their vaccines on RNA. Freezing them keeps their fragile components from breaking down.

  6. Health & Medicine

    New Pfizer results show its COVID-19 vaccine is nearly 95% effective

    With final results – including showing its vaccine is 94 percent effective in the elderly – Pfizer is poised to request emergency use authorization.

  7. Health & Medicine

    Coronavirus cases are skyrocketing. Here’s what it will take to gain control

    Basic public health measures can still curb COVID-19, if everyone does their part.

  8. Health & Medicine

    How two immune system chemicals may trigger COVID-19’s deadly cytokine storms

    A study in mice hints at drugs that could be helpful in treating severe coronavirus infections.

  9. Health & Medicine

    Remdesivir doesn’t reduce COVID-19 deaths, a large WHO trial finds

    An international study of more than 11,000 people finds that remdesivir doesn’t prevent deaths from COVID-19, but the drug may still be useful.

  10. Genetics

    Gene-editing tool CRISPR wins the chemistry Nobel

    A gene-editing tool developed just eight years ago that has “revolutionized the life sciences” nabbed the 2020 Nobel Prize in chemistry.

  11. Health & Medicine

    Hepatitis C discoveries win 2020 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine

    The 2020 medicine Nobel recognizes work that found that a novel virus was to blame for chronic hepatitis and led to a test to screen blood donations.

  12. Health & Medicine

    Neandertal genes in people today may raise risk of severe COVID-19

    People in South Asia and Europe are more likely to carry a genetic heirloom from Neandertals linked to susceptibility to the coronavirus.