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

  1. Health & Medicine

    Explainer: What is mpox (formerly monkeypox)?

    Once rare, the viral disease monkeypox exploded onto the global scene for the first time in 2022.

  2. Health & Medicine

    To test for COVID-19, a dog’s nose can match a nose swab

    Dogs can sniff out COVID-19 cases as well as PCR tests can — and are better at ID’ing cases having no symptoms, a new study finds.

  3. Health & Medicine

    A 2021 Nobel goes for discovering how our body reads touch sensations

    David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian found nerve-cell sensors for temperature, pain and pressure.

  4. Health & Medicine

    COVID-19 can infect kids — and risks sickening some severely

    Not all are equally impacted. Even among supposedly low risk groups, concerns intensify as the super-contagious delta variant sweeps across the globe.

  5. Health & Medicine

    What is the role of in-person classes in COVID-19’s spread?

    New data haven’t shown that schools pose a big coronavirus risk to kids and their families, despite fears that they might.

  6. Genetics

    Just a tiny share of the DNA in us is unique to humans

    Some of these tweaks to DNA, however, may have played a role in brain evolution.

  7. Humans

    How scientists can get a better picture of our extinct relatives

    Facial reconstructions of extinct species have historically been more art than science. Some researchers hope to change that.

  8. Moderna and Pfizer vaccines appear to cut coronavirus spread

    The vaccines are about 90 percent effective at blocking infection, which should cut spread of the virus. And at least one vaccine works well in teens.

  9. Humans

    By not including everyone, genome science has blind spots

    Little diversity in genetic databases makes precision medicine hard for many. One historian proposes a solution, but some scientists doubt it’ll work.

  10. Humans

    Some identical twins don’t have the exact same DNA

    Identical twins may not be exactly identical. Mutations may arise early in development that account for tiny genetic differences between siblings.

  11. Health & Medicine

    Third major vaccine shows great promise against COVID-19

    This vaccine, which may be easier to get to the public, appears to be 90 percent effective at halting disease and maybe spread of the new coronavirus.

  12. Health & Medicine

    Explainer: What is a spike protein?

    These proteins, which give coronaviruses their name, also help them to infect cells.