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

    Protein clumps like a prion, but proves crucial for long-term memory

    Study in slugs hints that some molecular 'misbehavior' in neurons may help solidify learning.

  2. Life

    Skin cells transformed directly into neurons

    Researchers making neurons bypass the need to revert cells to an embryonic state.

  3. Health & Medicine

    Neurons may function more solo than thought

    Neurons coordinate activity less often than previously thought.

  4. Life

    MRSA bacterial strain mutates quickly as it spreads

    Antibiotic-resistant microbe's detailed family tree reveals roots of the global infection.

  5. Life

    Protein may be new target for obesity, diabetes therapies

    Molecule regulates flip of a metabolic switch, helps determine how the body uses glucose.

  6. Let there be light

    New technology illuminates neuronal conversations in the brain

  7. Life

    Why light makes migraines worse

    A new study traces brain wiring to discover why light increases migraine pain.

  8. Life

    Fruit fly bodies bank stem cells

    Stem cells carve their own niches.

  9. Life

    Bornavirus genes found in human DNA

    Researchers have found molecular fossils of an RNA virus in human and other mammalian genomes, pushing back the emergence of RNA viruses millions of years.

  10. Life

    Cancer plaguing Tasmanian devils began in one animal’s nerve cells

    Genetics provide a starting point for diagnosis and potential vaccines.

  11. Life

    Lupus not identical in twins

    Differences in DNA methylation may account for why one sibling gets the autoimmune disease while the other stays healthy.

  12. Health & Medicine

    When body meets H1N1 flu

    Two studies map interactions between virus and human cells; one study reveals natural flu fighters.