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. Genetics

    Genetic diversity data offers medical benefits

    Study of protein-producing DNA narrows down disease-causing genetic variants.

  2. Genetics

    Scientists get a glimpse of chemical tagging in live brains

    For the first time scientists can see where molecular tags known as epigenetic marks are placed in the brain.

  3. Genetics

    Scientists get a glimpse of chemical tagging in live brains

    For the first time scientists can see where molecular tags known as epigenetic marks are placed in the brain.

  4. Genetics

    Rats offer clues to biology of alcoholism

    Heavy-drinking rats are giving scientists new genetic clues to alcoholism.

  5. Genetics

    Dolly the Sheep’s cloned sisters aging gracefully

    Cloning doesn’t cause premature aging in sheep.

  6. Genetics

    Swapping analogous genes no problem among species

    Many genes are interchangeable between yeast, bacteria, plants and humans.

  7. Genetics

    Herbicide no match for fruit flies’ gut microbes

    Friendly gut bacteria team up to break down herbicide that might otherwise harm fruit flies.

  8. Health & Medicine

    No one-fits-all healthy diet exists

    Mice’s response to diet varies with their genes.

  9. Genetics

    ‘Junk DNA’ has value for roundworms

    Some “junk DNA” may be necessary to keep genes active.

  10. Genetics

    Seeing the upside in gene drives’ fatal flaw

    Gene drives’ fatal flaw could be a bonus.

  11. Life

    A healthy old age may trump immortality

    Despite disagreements about what aging is and isn't, scientists have reached a radical consensus: It can be delayed.

  12. Health & Medicine

    How one patient spread MERS to 82 people

    One person passed the Middle East respiratory syndrome virus to 82 others during an outbreak in South Korea in 2015.