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. Life

    Near reefs, microbial mix dictated by coral and algae

    A reef’s dominant organism, coral or algae, may determine what kind of bacteria live there.

  2. Life

    HIV hides in growth-promoting genes

    The discovery that HIV can trigger infected cells to divide means scientists may need to rethink strategies for treating the virus that causes AIDS.

  3. Life

    Autoimmune diseases stopped in mice

    Reprogramming immune cells may offer a way to treat autoimmune diseases without harming the body’s ability to fight infections.

  4. Genetics

    Gene variant tied to diabetes in Greenlanders

    Greenlanders who carry two copies of a newly discovered gene variant have upwards of 10 times the chance of developing type 2 diabetes.

  5. Life

    Avian flu could strike Asian poultry markets outside China

    H7N9 influenza has a higher chance of spreading to humans in urban areas close to water, researchers predict.

  6. Genetics

    Chimp and human lineages may have split twice as long ago as thought

    New estimates of chimpanzee mutation rates suggest humans and chimps last shared a common ancestor 13 million years ago.

  7. Life

    Oxytocin stimulates repair of old mice’s muscles

    The naturally produced hormone oxytocin, well known for its role in social bonding, may help heal injured muscles in the elderly.

  8. Genetics

    Bromine found to be essential to animal life

    Fruit flies deprived of the element bromine can’t make normal connective tissue that supports cells and either don’t hatch or die as larvae.

  9. Genetics

    Blind mole-rats are loaded with anticancer genes

    Genes of the long-lived blind mole-rat help explain how the animal evades cancer and why it lost vision.

  10. Genetics

    How a genetic quirk makes hair naturally blond

    Natural blonds don’t need hair dye. They have a variation on a genetic enhancer that dampens pigment production in their hair follicles, scientists say.

  11. Life

    Starchy foods more filling than fiber, lab tests suggest

    Tests of gut microbe digestion of potato starch and fiber suggest that moving away from grass-heavy ancestral diets may not be the reason for obesity epidemic.

  12. Life

    In a surprise find, placentas harbor bacteria

    Mouth bacteria make their way to the placenta. Some mixes may trigger premature birth.