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. Humans

    Adaptive no more

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

  2. 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.

  3. Life

    Straight to the heart

    New method transforms skin cells directly into beating cardiac cells.

  4. 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.

  5. Health & Medicine

    Sleep makes the memory

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

  6. 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.

  7. 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.

  8. Life

    Genes separate Africa’s elephant herds

    Genetic work reveals forest and savanna pachyderms as distinct species.

  9. Life

    Gene genesis

    About a quarter of present-day life's DNA blueprint had been sketched out by 2.8 billion years ago, a new analysis finds.

  10. Life

    Mice missing protein burn more fat

    Research on the receptor for the 'hunger hormone' suggests a molecular strategy for revving up the body’s furnace.

  11. Life

    New cellular ‘bones’ revealed

    Proteins that make filaments may offer hints to how cellular scaffolding evolved.

  12. Life

    Cells reprogrammed to treat diabetes

    The testes may be an alternate source of insulin production.