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. Science & Society

    12 reasons research goes wrong

    Barriers to research replication are based largely in a scientific culture that pits researchers against each other in competition for scarce resources. Here are a few that skew results.

  2. Science & Society

    Is redoing scientific research the best way to find truth?

    Researchers don’t even agree on whether it is necessary to duplicate studies exactly or to validate the underlying principles.

  3. Health & Medicine

    More oxygen may lead to more tumors

    Lung cancer risk drops at higher elevations where the air is thinner.

  4. Humans

    Babbling to babies is OK, despite previous warnings against it

    Fifty years ago, a researcher advised banning baby talk, but results since then say otherwise.

  5. Life

    Cold coddles colds

    Antiviral responses aren’t as effective against common cold viruses in cooler temperatures.

  6. Life

    Insect-eating bats implicated as Ebola outbreak source

    Insect-eating bats, not fruit bats, may have started the Ebola epidemic.

  7. Life

    Contamination blamed in STAP stem cell debacle

    Stem cells supposedly made in acid baths were really embryonic stem cells, investigation finds.

  8. Genetics

    The art of DNA folding

    Cells must compress genetic material into a nucleus that measures only about 5 micrometers across. To accomplish the feat, cells make loops in the DNA.

  9. Life

    Hydrogen sulfide offers clue to how reducing calories lengthens lives

    Cutting calories boosts hydrogen sulfide production, which leads to more resilient cells and longer lives, a new study suggests.

  10. Life

    Bird flu follows avian flyways

    A deadly bird flu virus spreads along wildfowl migration routes in Asia.

  11. Genetics

    Evolve and Linkage turn science into games

    In the two new games Evolve and Linkage, biological principles are made entertaining and strategic.

  12. Humans

    Year in review: Old humans reveal secrets

    DNA of the oldest modern humans is rewriting the prehistories of Europe, Siberia and the Americas.