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

    Rare mutations key to brain disorders

    Many cases of mental retardation can be explained by genetic variants that arise in affected individuals.

  2. Life

    Soil search suggests broad roots for antibiotic resistance

    Drug-defeating genes are everywhere, but don’t blame dirt-dwelling bacteria for resistance seen in the clinic.

  3. Life

    The sandman gene

    Researchers find another genetic variant linked to sleep duration.

  4. Life

    Genome may be mostly junk after all

    A cross-species comparison suggests that more than 90 percent of the DNA in the human genome has no known function.

  5. Life

    Central dogma of genetics maybe not so central

    In thousands of genes, RNA frequently fails to accurately transcribe DNA.

  6. Life

    1000 Genomes pilot a hit with geneticists

    The first stage of a project to probe human genetic diversity has found millions of new variations.

  7. Life

    Splices of time

    Organisms distinguish day and night by shifting the way genes are interpreted.

  8. Life

    Molecular Evolution

    Investigating the genetic books of life reveals new details of 'descent with modification' and the forces driving it.

  9. Life

    More than a chicken, fewer than a grape

    A decade after the completion of the Human Genome Project, the exact number of human genes remains elusive.

  10. The Why of Sleep

    Brain studies may reveal the purpose of a behavior both basic and mystifying.

  11. Dying to Sleep

    Getting too little sleep can impair body and brain and could even be deadly.

  12. Life

    Bacteria strut their stuff

    Videos show that microbes can walk on hairlike appendages.