![Tina Hesman Saey](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/t_saey.jpg?resize=214%2C214&ssl=1)
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.
![](https://www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/themes/sciencenews/client/src/images/cta-module-sm@2x.jpg)
Trustworthy journalism comes at a price.
Scientists and journalists share a core belief in questioning, observing and verifying to reach the truth. Science News reports on crucial research and discovery across science disciplines. We need your financial support to make it happen – every contribution makes a difference.
All Stories by Tina Hesman Saey
- Genetics
Rats offer clues to biology of alcoholism
Heavy-drinking rats are giving scientists new genetic clues to alcoholism.
- Genetics
Dolly the Sheep’s cloned sisters aging gracefully
Cloning doesn’t cause premature aging in sheep.
- Genetics
Swapping analogous genes no problem among species
Many genes are interchangeable between yeast, bacteria, plants and humans.
- Genetics
Herbicide no match for fruit flies’ gut microbes
Friendly gut bacteria team up to break down herbicide that might otherwise harm fruit flies.
- Health & Medicine
No one-fits-all healthy diet exists
Mice’s response to diet varies with their genes.
-
-
- 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.
- 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.
- Genetics
Gene drives aren’t ready for the wild, report concludes
A type of genetic engineering called gene drives need more work, a National Academies report concludes.
- Life
Refined ‘three-parent-baby’ procedure improves chances for healthy infant
Improved technique could reduce risk of passing on faulty mitochondria.
- Life
Obesity’s weight gain message starts in gut
Acetate made by gut microbes stimulates weight gain, research in rodents suggests.