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

    Fly pheromones can say yes and no

    A new study begins to decode pheromone messages and finds that the same chemicals that attract can also maintain the species barrier.

  2. Life

    Circadian clockwork takes unexpected turns

    Some neurons in the brain’s master clock fall silent in the afternoon. The unexpected finding prompts scientists to rethink how the clock works.

  3. Chemistry

    Nobel Prize in chemistry commends finding and use of green fluorescent protein

    One researcher is awarded for discovering the protein that helps jellyfish glow and two for making the protein into a crucial tool for biologists.

  4. Health & Medicine

    Nobel in medicine honors discoveries of telomeres and telomerase

    Three scientists share the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of telomeres, which protect the ends of chromosomes, and the enzyme telomerase, which adds the structures to the ends of chromosomes.

  5. Health & Medicine

    Alzheimer’s linked to lack of Zzzzs

    Sleep deprivation leads to more Alzheimer’s disease plaques in the brains of genetically susceptible mice.

  6. Health & Medicine

    Monkeys get full color vision

    Male squirrel monkeys with red-green colorblindness can distinguish the hues after gene therapy, study suggests.

  7. Health & Medicine

    Diabetes drugs don’t fight inflammation

    Two popular diabetes drugs lower blood sugar but don’t reduce markers of inflammation.

  8. Health & Medicine

    The eyes remember

    Eye movements may reveal memories that the hippocampus recalls even when a person isn’t aware of them, a new study shows.

  9. Three genes linked to Alzheimer’s disease risk

    Three new genes that raise the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease have been discovered in two large genome-wide searches.

  10. Health & Medicine

    Mice with mutation feel the burn

    Instead of becoming obese, mice with a mutation in an immune gene burn off the fat they eat.

  11. Life

    Tasmanian devils have no star networkers

    Tasmanian devils all know each other, a new study shows. The discovery could mean that stopping the spread of an infectious cancer will be harder than previously thought.

  12. Life

    A gene for a short night’s sleep

    Alterations in a gene called DEC2 lead to a shortened sleep period in people, mice and fruit flies.