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

    Microbes may reveal colon cancer mutations

    Certain microbial mixes are associated with particular DNA mutations in colon cancer, a new study suggests.

  2. Health & Medicine

    Cancer drug’s effectiveness overinflated in animal studies

    Claims about the cancer drug sunitinib are overblown because of poorly designed studies and negative results that were never published, a new analysis suggests.

  3. Health & Medicine

    Cancer drug’s effectiveness overinflated in animal studies

    Claims about the cancer drug sunitinib are overblown because of poorly designed studies and negative results that were never published, a new analysis suggests.

  4. Genetics

    Gene editing makes pigs safer for human transplants

    CRISPR/Cas9 disables multiple viruses at one time

  5. Genetics

    Chemical tags on DNA appear to differ between gay and straight men

    DNA marks distinguished homosexual men from heterosexual men with in a small twin study.

  6. Health & Medicine

    Nobel medicine prize won for drugs from natural sources

    Nobel Prizes in medicine or physiology awarded for drugs that combat roundworms and malaria

  7. Health & Medicine

    Therapies against roundworm, malaria parasites win medicine Nobel

    The 2015 Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology was awarded to Youyou Tu for her work in counteracting malaria, and to William Campbell and Satoshi Omura for work on treatments against roundworm parasites.

  8. Life

    Babies low on key gut bacteria at higher risk of asthma

    Asthma risk may be set early in life, but mice data suggest that the risk could altered by friendly gut bacteria.

  9. Life

    For people, mealtime is all the time

    People eat for most of their waking hours, which may affect sleep and weight.

  10. Planetary Science

    ‘The Martian’ is entertaining science fiction rooted in fact

    With NASA’s help, filmmakers made story of astronaut stranded on Mars believable.

  11. Life

    Old stem cell barriers fade away

    Barrier that keeps aging factors out of stem cells breaks down with age.

  12. Genetics

    Bad Karma can ruin palm oil crops

    Missing epigenetic mark makes for Bad Karma and poor palm oil crops.