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

    Looking beyond insulin

    Leptin gene therapy reverses many of the consequences of type 1 diabetes in mice and rats.

  2. Health & Medicine

    How mice smell fear

    Mice may use a cluster of neurons known as the Grueneberg ganglion to detect alarm pheromones.

  3. Health & Medicine

    Dopamine fends off zzzzz’s

    A reward chemical in the brain helps keep sleep-deprived people awake.

  4. Health & Medicine

    Immune cells show long-term memory

    Survivors of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic still make antibodies against the virus, revealing a long-lived immunity previously thought impossible.

  5. Life

    Bacteria use poison to make food

    Bacteria from Mono Lake conduct photosynthesis with arsenic, a form of the process that may be a relic of life on Earth before the advent of an oxygen atmosphere.

  6. Life

    H9N2 avian flu strain has pandemic potential

    Just one change in a strain of avian flu virus makes it transmissible by direct contact in ferrets, but the virus still lacks the ability to spread by airborne particles.

  7. Health & Medicine

    Never bet against a pro

    Players run a simulation of a throw in their own brains and muscles and are more accurate at predicting whether a shot will go in the basket than coaches, sports journalists or novice watchers.

  8. Humans

    Neandertal mitochondrial DNA deciphered

    Researchers have completed a mitochondrial genome sequence from a Neandertal. DNA taken from a 38,000-year-old bone indicates that humans and Neandertals diverged 660,000 years ago and are distinct groups.

  9. Life

    Eat less, weigh more

    Separate neurons in the nematode brain control eating and fat-building. The discovery may help explain some mysteries of obesity.

  10. Health & Medicine

    Neuron Killers

    Misfolded, clumping proteins evade conviction, but they remain prime suspects in neurodegenerative diseases.

  11. Health & Medicine

    Dopamine could help the sleep-deprived still learn

    Sleep loss impairs fruit flies’ ability to learn, just as it does in people. But boosting dopamine in the flies can erase these learning deficits.

  12. Health & Medicine

    Protein links metabolism and circadian rhythms

    Scientists have known for ages that metabolism is tied to the body’s daily rhythms. Two new studies suggest how.