
Tina Hesman Saey
Senior Writer, Molecular Biology, Science News
Science News 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 Endocrine Society, the Genetics Society of America and by journalism organizations.

All Stories by Tina Hesman Saey
- Brain
Understanding body clocks brings three a Nobel Prize
Three American men will share this year’s Nobel prize for physiology or medicine. The award recognizes their contributions to understanding the workings of the body’s biological clock.
- Genetics
Molecular scissors fix disease-causing flaw in human embryos
Researchers moved closer to being able to fix gene-edited embryos in people. They removed a flawed gene that causes heart failure
- Genetics
Explainer: How CRISPR works
Scientists are using a tool called CRISPR to edit DNA in all types of cells.
- Genetics
DNA tells tale of how cats conquered the world
Ancient DNA study suggests that domesticated cats spread across the ancient world in two waves.
- Health & Medicine
Your gut’s germs may decide whether white bread or whole wheat is best — for you
Surprise! Gut microbes may determine how your body responds to starches in the diet.
- Science & Society
Will we know alien life when we see it?
The hunt is on for extraterrestrials. But recognizing them may require some wiggle room in what we define as being alive.
- Life
How to make a ‘three-parent’ baby
Scientists combined an egg, sperm and some donor DNA: The end result: what appears to be healthy babies.
- Microbes
New date for U.S. arrival of the AIDS virus
A new study shows that HIV started circulating at least a decade earlier than previously realized.
- Genetics
Human DNA carries hints of unknown extinct ancestor
A new study suggests people today carry genetic traces of now-extinct species unknown to science.
- Health & Medicine
Surprise! Most ‘color vision’ cells see only black or white
Cone cells in the eye’s retina can see black, white or color. The black and white ones may create sharp outlines and edges that color-sensing cones then fill in like parts of a coloring page.
- Climate
Globe’s non-Africans all descend from a single move out of Africa
Look back far enough and everybody’s ancestors were African no more than 72,000 years ago. Climate scientists would up that date to perhaps 100,000 years ago.
- Animals
Tasmanian devils begin to resist infectious cancer
A deadly contagious cancer is spreading among Tasmanian devils. But the animals are evolving resistance, a new study finds.