SAN ANTONIO – Dr. James Lechleiter’s love for science started on his childhood farm in the plains of western Minnesota.
“My father was always having to fix things,” said Lechleiter, professor of Cellular Structural Biology and faculty member at University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio. “You would never just go into the store and buy something new. It was always getting something to work.”
Lechleiter said he always found himself looking up at the stars.
“I got to know the constellations and that was always quite fun," he said.
He said the stars led him to a love of astronomy, and eventually building his own telescopes, a process that takes a couple of years to complete.
“Using instrumentation to see things that the eye wasn’t good enough to see… it’s something that’s always fascinated me," he said.
Lechleiter said he’s taken his love for telescopes and applied it to his work in the laboratory.
At the University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio, he studies the short-term and long-term effects of traumatic brain injury.
The goal is to figure out how to slow the side effects down -- or even reverse them.
“That’s why you get into science, I think, because you want to understand how things work," he said.
For more information on the University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio you can call (210) 450-9000 or visit them online at www.UTMedicine.com.