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

    Here’s why some pigeons do backflips

    Meet the scientist homing in on the genes involved in making parlor roller pigeons do backward somersaults.

  2. Health & Medicine

    Don’t use unsterilized tap water to rinse your sinuses. It may carry brain-eating amoebas

    Two new studies document rare cases in which people who rinsed sinuses with unsterilized tap got infected with brain-eating amoebas.

  3. Planetary Science

    The desert planet in ‘Dune’ is plausible, according to science

    Humans could live on the fictional planet Arrakis from Dune but (thankfully) no giant sandworms would menace them.

  4. Neuroscience

    Ancient viruses helped speedy nerves evolve

    A retrovirus embedded in the DNA of some vertebrates helps turn on production of a protein needed to insulate nerve cells, aiding speedy thoughts.

  5. Health & Medicine

    Newfound immune cells are responsible for long-lasting allergies

    A specialized type of immune cell appears primed to make the type of antibodies that lead to allergies, two research groups report.

  6. Microbes

    Bird flu viruses may pack tools that help them infect human cells

    Bringing along their own ANP32 proteins may give avian flu viruses a jump-start on copying themselves to adapt to and infect humans and other animals.

  7. Humans

    Here’s why COVID-19 isn’t seasonal so far

    Human immunity and behavior may be more important than weather for driving seasonality when it comes to COVID-19.

  8. Chemistry

    Here’s how tardigrades go into suspended animation

    A new study offers more clues about the role of oxidation in signaling transitions between alive and mostly dead in tardigrades.

  9. Life

    Bacteria fossils hold the oldest signs of machinery needed for photosynthesis

    Microfossils from Australia suggest that cyanobacteria evolved structures for oxygen-producing photosynthesis by 1.78 billion years ago.

  10. Health & Medicine

    Fetuses make a protein that causes morning sickness in pregnancy

    A hormone called GDF15 triggers a part of the brain involved in nausea and vomiting, a new study finds. Blocking its action may lead to treatments.

  11. Health & Medicine

    Why Huntington’s disease may take so long to develop

    Repeated bits of the disease-causing gene pile up in some brain cells. New treatments could involve stopping the additions.

  12. Genetics

    Most of today’s gene therapies rely on viruses — and that’s a problem

    The next big strides in gene therapy for rare diseases may come from CRISPR and new approaches to delivery.