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. Health & Medicine

    Alpha wave may affect sleep quality

    A type of brain activity once considered diagnostic of wakefulness persists during slumber, and the more intense it is the more easily a person can be jolted awake.

  2. Life

    Good gene type for cancer bad for stroke

    A DNA variant that helps prevent tumors may diminish the brain’s recovery after an interruption in blood supply.

  3. Chemistry

    Mad cow-type diseases lie in wait

    Prion infections build quickly in the brain then pause before killing, new research suggests.

  4. Humans

    Sweeps weak in human evolution

    Contrary to conventional wisdom, the rapid spread of beneficial mutations has been relatively rare in the evolutionary history of Homo sapiens, a new study shows.

  5. Humans

    Adaptive no more

    A potential benefit in prehistoric lean times, genetic variant may increase risk of gestational diabetes today.

  6. Life

    Running a cancer roadblock

    A new study shows how cells escaping from a breast tumor overcome a piece of RNA that usually stops them.

  7. Life

    Straight to the heart

    New method transforms skin cells directly into beating cardiac cells.

  8. Life

    Pneumonia drugs helped evolve a superbug

    As told through DNA from historical samples, a deadly bacterium reveals how it developed the ability to evade antibiotics and a vaccine.

  9. Health & Medicine

    Sleep makes the memory

    Napping while reliving memories stabilizes people’s ability to recall them later.

  10. Health & Medicine

    Tallying the caloric cost of an all-nighter

    Sleep is energy-saving, and missing even one night sends the body into conservation mode, new measurements show.

  11. Health & Medicine

    When good cholesterol is even better

    It's quality, not just quantity, of high-density lipoprotein that counts in heart disease, study suggests.

  12. Life

    Genes separate Africa’s elephant herds

    Genetic work reveals forest and savanna pachyderms as distinct species.