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. Neuroscience

    Selective memory

    Using genetic engineering and chemical manipulation, scientists erased the memory of a stressful experience from a mouse’s brain.

  2. Life

    Community of one

    Scientists have discovered how a single bacterial species living in a gold mine in South Africa survives on its own. Its genome contains everything it needs to live independently.

  3. Health & Medicine

    Don’t forget diet composition

    Caloric restriction, an antiaging technique, fails to lower levels of IGF-1, a growth factor that, in high amounts, is linked to cancer in humans. But cutting protein along with calories does decrease IGF-1.

  4. Life

    X chromosome is extra diverse

    Men who father children with multiple women are responsible for “extra” diversity on the X chromosome, a new study of six different populations suggests.

  5. Health & Medicine

    This is the brain on age

    The activity of genes in men's brains begins to change sooner than it does in women's brains, a new study shows.

  6. Life

    First lipid hormone discovered

    An omega-7 fatty acid made by fat and liver cells acts as a hormone, even mimicking the health benefits of insulin.

  7. Immune cell plays good cop, bad cop

    Immune cells called macrophages aid neuron regeneration in some parts of the nervous system, but hinder regeneration in the brain and spinal cord.

  8. Health & Medicine

    Late nights and disease

    Getting too little sleep may lead to health problems. A new study shows that after only one night of sleep deprivation, women have higher levels of an inflammatory molecule linked to cancer, heart disease and other illnesses.

  9. Life

    A ‘foxi’ gene for dog baldness

    A FOXI3 mutation makes some dogs bald.

  10. Neuroscience

    New insights on new neurons

    Neurogenesis works differently in two parts of the brain. New neurons are necessary for making memories and keep the olfactory bulb’s structure but aren’t needed for smelling, study in mice shows.

  11. Potent Promise: Essential Stemness

    Scientists move closer to understanding the dual fates of embryonic stem cells — to divide or develop.

  12. Health & Medicine

    A-beta on the brain

    A study of 18 comatose patients finds that as brain activity increases, concentrations of a protein linked to Alzheimer’s disease also increase.