Launching Research Careers Through the Katz & Manne Research Institute Summer Scholars Program

The Robert Louis Katz & Manne Research Institute Summer Scholars Program helped Mario Landa turn an interest in biology and infectious disease into a career in pediatric research. Now a clinical research coordinator at Lurie Children’s, Landa joins Dr. Patrick Seed to discuss his path into research, the importance of mentorship and representation and what it takes to help the next generation of researchers find their place in pediatric medical research.

• Mario Landa grew up on Chicago’s Lower West Side and discovered an interest in biomedical research while taking an AP biology class at Walter Payton College Prep High School. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he began investigating deeper questions about viruses, vaccines and infectious diseases. As a student at DePaul University, those interests led him to pursue biology and research.
• The Katz & Manne Research Institute Summer Scholars Program gave Landa access to a world of research he had not previously experienced. Encouraged by a college mentor to pursue summer research opportunities, he applied to the highly competitive program, which receives nearly 300 applications for 10 or fewer positions.
• The Summer Scholars experience expanded his understanding of potential research careers. Through weekly seminars, Landa met physicians, scientists and research nurses, learning that research extends far beyond traditional laboratory settings. One influential encounter was with Dr. Bill Mueller, whose unconventional career path resonated with Landa and helped him evaluate his own goal of pursuing an MD, PhD or both. Landa later worked with Mueller.
• Moving from student to researcher meant learning to navigate both accomplishment and rejection. Landa described helping lead a study on bloodstream infections in pediatric solid organ transplant recipients, navigating the institutional review board process and data analysis, and seeing his work published. He also discussed handling the paper’s initial journal rejection, the challenges of scientific writing and how mentors taught him to separate constructive feedback from his identity as a researcher.
• Mentorship, representation and belonging help keep young scientists in the research pipeline. Landa recalled questioning whether research was right for him due to limited early exposure. The Summer Scholars Program showed him the breadth and flexibility of the field, renewing his commitment. He emphasized the importance of mentors who invest time in students, peers who share similar backgrounds and communities that reinforce that young researchers have a place in science.

[00:00:00] Dr. Pat Seed: This is In Pursuit, research perspectives from Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago. I am your host, Dr. Patrick Seed, President and Chief Research Officer of Stanley Manne Children's Research Institute, one of the nation's largest freestanding pediatric research centers. Today we're going to explore a little different perspective into pediatric research—not through the perspective of someone who's already really well established in the field, but somebody who's at the very beginning of that trajectory. Our guest, Mario Landa, is a Chicago native and a DePaul graduate whose research already spans transplant infectious diseases, plasma metagenomic diagnostics, community norms around child safety and health equity, and transportation behaviors. He has first-author work in transplant infectious diseases at Infectious Diseases Week 2025, and he has contributions to public health research led through our Manne Research Institute, and I'm really pleased that he is currently serving as a clinical research coordinator here at Lurie Children's Hospital and Manne Research Institute, focusing on infectious diseases. What makes Mario's story compelling isn't just the research output; it's what he represents as part of the future of pediatric research in the workforce. His path is what happens when mentorship, access, and identity intersect with curiosity and scientific rigor. And today we're going to talk about what it actually takes to keep someone like Mario and his generation in the research pipeline. So thanks so much, Mario, for joining me today.

[00:01:34] Mario Landa: And thank you for inviting me.

[00:01:36] Dr. Pat Seed: I just want to start, Mario, with some of the basics of where you were coming from, you know, well before some of these successes you have now of publications and going to conferences. I just want to know where you came from a bit. I think you grew up in Chicago, right?

[00:01:48] Mario Landa: I grew up in the Lower West Side of Chicago, and I went to DePaul University, and now I'm a clinical research coordinator here at Lurie Children's. I originally wasn't interested in research. I was initially interested in being an engineer 'cause I liked learning how things work. And then I took AP Bio my junior year of high school. And then that's what really started to get me interested in biology. And then COVID also happened that same year. So I started getting more interested in microbiology, and that's how I started learning more about microbiology.

[00:02:24] Dr. Pat Seed: So you went to Walter Payton, am I right?

[00:02:26] Mario Landa: Yes, I did go to Walter Payton.

[00:02:28] Dr. Pat Seed: Yeah. So what was it about that AP Bio class?

[00:02:31] Mario Landa: It was the teacher.

[00:02:33] Dr. Pat Seed: What did the teacher do that you were like, okay, I can relate to this person and what they're teaching me?

[00:02:37] Mario Landa: She was very understanding from a student's perspective that, like, we have sports, we have a lot of things going on, but also tried to prioritize: This is a class I need you to do the work, and really made the work engaging, fun. There were a lot of group activities. I really liked my classmates and applying biology in, like, real-world settings, which made it more digestible, in my opinion.

[00:03:05] Dr. Pat Seed: Now you went after that to DePaul University, and did you sort of think about research as a professional area going in, or did that sort of come as part of your time at the university?

[00:03:17] Mario Landa: So when I was applying to colleges, I was really interested in microbiology research, and I considered that as one of the concentrations I wanted to pursue. I wasn't 100% set on that when I started college. When I started college, I also had an interest in economics and finance. My counselor, the first quarter of college, recommended I take both classes, an intro biology class and an intro microeconomics class, to see which one I liked more. And after that first quarter, I realized that maybe microeconomics wasn't for me. So I pursued biology. And the second quarter, it was a lot better. The class focused on ecology and evolution. I also had a study abroad class that same quarter with the same professor who was teaching my Biology II class. And all the pieces just came together, and I was like, this is what I want to do.

[00:04:08] Dr. Pat Seed: That's amazing. Research is like a hypothetical for students, and I always think when people sort of realize, oh, this is real—like you can actually do this for a career, it can actually make an impact—do you remember sort of when that transition happened for you?

[00:04:22] Mario Landa: I can't pinpoint an exact time of when that was for me, but I do know that as a kid I always wanted to know how things work, and that there's a lot in life that is explained by biology. Learning a couple things here and there could explain simple things of why I get thirsty, for example, which is one of the examples that my AP teacher used in high school, or why we need to drink water. Examples like that, and then explaining them from a scientific point of view, made me more interested in these topics.

[00:04:52] Dr. Pat Seed: Where did your family fall into this story for you? Was this something very foreign? Did they have a particular role in sort of stimulating curiosity or interest for you?

[00:05:02] Mario Landa: The path toward research, it's very foreign in my family. Most of my family are blue-collar workers, and I don't think they sparked my curiosity, but they always engaged it. So they'd ask me questions like, why do you think this happens? Why do you think we do this? Why do you think we do that? And then that kind of, since I was a little kid, got in my head of, okay, I have to think about how things work and why they work and why we do certain things.

[00:05:25] Dr. Pat Seed: So you were the family science translator, it sounds like. That's great. What do your parents think about you being a research coordinator now? I mean, this is your job.

[00:05:35] Mario Landa: I don't think they still quite understand what I do on a day-to-day basis. It depends from family member to family member, but my grandma thinks I'm on par with a doctor almost, which is not true at all. And then some family members are more understanding of what I actually do on a day-to-day basis, and then they'll ask me questions about my research occasionally.

[00:05:56] Dr. Pat Seed: You alluded to your decision-making early on being during the pandemic. You're the curious scientist, right? Budding scientist. How do you think it moved your family with you or against your interests in infectious diseases and research around that?

[00:06:12] Mario Landa: Well, the first question that comes to mind that my family would ask me was, why do we need to take this vaccine? And when this came up in conversation with family members, I didn't know the answer. So then that's when I started trying to teach myself: Why do we need to take this COVID vaccine? But the big question that I asked myself was, how does this little virus cause this entire pandemic, and how does this little virus make all of us sick? So that's what started my major interest in microbiology and infectious diseases.

[00:06:43] Dr. Pat Seed: I want to think about really some of the major forces in your trajectory as you have moved through your undergraduate to being now a research coordinator, and seems like a lot of it has always been around exposure and access. Being exposed to the career opportunities, the things like the science that underlies it, that can drive curiosity and passion, and then can you actually access it? Can you actually get into the system and do it? And I think you had a unique experience of joining Manne Research Institute through the Katz and Manne Summer Scholars Program, right? How did you first hear about the program?

[00:07:17] Mario Landa: This came from one of my mentors in college. She was a graduate student, and we were just talking about applications as a whole, and she mentioned that I should start doing summer research programs to make myself more competitive for Ph.D. programs, which is what I was looking into at the moment. So I just went online and searched up Chicago research programs over the summer, and the Katz and Manne one was one of the first options, and I just went down the list of which programs worked for me, which ones didn't, and which ones I was actually interested in. And that's how I ended up applying to the Katz and Manne summer research program.

[00:07:56] Dr. Pat Seed: Not to embarrass you here on the podcast, but it's a pretty competitive program. We've had in the past few years just a little under 300 applications, and we take 10 or fewer students for the summer. So you were doing something right to set yourself up to get that opportunity, right, to be ultimately chosen. What do you think sort of set the stage for your application, how you sort of talked about yourself and your success up to that point? What do you think were some of the key factors that probably helped make you noticeable to the committee that reviewed those applications?

[00:08:25] Mario Landa: I think one of those aspects is my background, 'cause during the application process we had to write a personal statement. And in that personal statement, I talked about my experience being in a field where there's not many people with a similar background to me. And I had impostor syndrome, which was a topic of my personal statement, and how I tried to overcome that with the help of my graduate mentor and my professor at DePaul. I was just being honest in my application: I struggled with this, but this is what I do to help me, and this is why I would benefit from this program.

[00:09:03] Dr. Pat Seed: And based on that, what advice would you give to other undergraduates who see the research, but they don't yet see themselves in research, and might have also similar impostor syndrome?

[00:09:14] Mario Landa: I would recommend talking to someone with a similar background to you, if it is possible. So my professor at DePaul, he is originally from Ecuador, and I wouldn't say the exact same background as me, but he was Spanish-speaking; Spanish was his first language. His field is also foreign to his family. So I kind of connected with my mentor a little bit, and that kind of eased my impostor syndrome, and just having a great support system around you. I had my graduate student mentor; I had other graduate students that would help me during my application process; my friends that would be supportive and saying, yes, you are a great fit for that program, you should go for it. 'Cause I think oftentimes we are more critical of ourselves than what other people would see. So having someone else reassure you that, yes, you are a competitor for this program, you should apply to it, is something that helped me realize I should be applying to these research programs.

[00:09:47] Dr. Pat Seed: Sounds right, great advice for somebody. Once you were doing the summer program, what sort of surprised you the most? Either about the way we do research, the research process, or how you sort of related, now that you were being a researcher?

[00:10:02] Mario Landa: What surprised me the most was how many different ways someone can do research. So during the program, we had weekly seminars where a guest speaker would come and talk about their experience. There were people who were M.D.s; there were people who were Ph.D.s; there were people who were M.D.s and Ph.D.s. We had research nurses come and talk to us. So just all the different ways that we can do research, and it isn't just sit in the lab, grow a Petri dish, and move forward with that. There's a lot of different aspects and approaches that someone can take to research was something that really stood out to me.

[00:10:58] Dr. Pat Seed: Do you remember among the people who came and talked to you that summer, was there anybody because of either the style or the type of work they were doing, did anybody stick out that you were like, I had never thought about that before or that perspective or that kind of research?

[00:11:12] Mario Landa: Yes, it was Dr. Mueller.

[00:11:13] Dr. Pat Seed: Okay. Tell me about that.

[00:11:15] Mario Landa: So his experience was, I wouldn't say exactly the same as mine, but he is not a traditional MD He did his PhD first, worked in industry for a bit, and then went to go get his MD, which was, in my head, he answered a question that I had for myself: I want a PhD, but how do I know that I want an MD? And he answered that already in his career. So that stood out to me, and that was a reason why I wanted to go talk to him. And now I eventually ended up working with him.

[00:11:44] Dr. Pat Seed: That's very cool. And now you've crossed the threshold that many undergraduates and recent graduates never do, which is, you're not just assisting in the research, you're actually doing it. You're leading manuscripts, you're presenting nationally. Take us into your first major research project and tell me about this idea of what did it feel like when you had authorship for the first time and you realized your name was going to be on that paper, right—which we identify as the person who really is driving a lot of the work forward.

[00:12:12] Mario Landa: So the first project that actually got published was the bloodstream infections in pediatric solid organ transplant recipients, and that was a project that Dr. Mueller and I wrote the IRB process together, did all the data analysis together. It was really rewarding seeing, okay, I did all this work, and now it is online for people to see and learn something from me. And it was more rewarding when there's a Chicago Transplant ID Symposium that's held every May at Rush, and some people at that symposium didn't recognize me, but they knew about my paper, which was even more rewarding.

[00:12:52] Dr. Pat Seed: That's fantastic. Putting together what ultimately is written in a manuscript is a lot of work, right? I think most people don't recognize how much goes into that. Where was the biggest learning curve for you? Like was it the study design, the analysis? Sometimes the IRB, and that's not always in your hands; sometimes that just takes a while. Like writing, I don't know, have you had a paper rejected that you've had to also deal with a rejection yet?

[00:13:14] Mario Landa: Yeah, so that study I mentioned, we originally tried publishing in the American Journal of Transplantation, and it got rejected. And we had to take those rejections, make modifications, and then reapply to a different journal, 'cause originally the American Journal of Transplantation said they wouldn't accept it with revisions. So that was a big rejection.

[00:13:35] Dr. Pat Seed: Rejections like that are really—I know it sounds funny, but they're really not rejections from the career, because it's just so common, right? As scientists constantly are being tested by things, we get rejected, and we sort of have to come back and try again. How did that feel for you?

[00:13:49] Mario Landa: I was a little upset. I had to remind myself the piece of advice that Dr. Macy and Dr. Mueller had given me when it comes to receiving feedback, which was: Don't take it personally, and take a day to look at it and just really think, was this valid feedback, or was it just the reviewer being picky? And originally I mentioned I was upset, and seeing that Dr. Mueller was okay with it, and he just told me, okay, we'll just do the revisions, apply somewhere else, and we'll be okay. So having that reassurance from Dr. Mueller helped me during that process.

[00:14:23] Dr. Pat Seed: What did you find to be in this study the hardest part? The most challenging, and sort of forced you to learn the most?

[00:14:29] Mario Landa: There are two aspects to this. I think analysis is not as straightforward as sometimes it may seem, and doing your own analysis is a little complicated sometimes, oftentimes. That process, I think, is hard. And then for me personally, the writing part is always the hardest, 'cause once you start writing the paper, in your head, you've done everything. You understand the study, you understand the inclusion, the exclusion criteria, how the study was formatted. You've looked at the results hundreds of times, but then to actually put it on paper is not something that comes easily to me. So that part is also very hard for me.

[00:15:06] Dr. Pat Seed: Yeah, I think writing is a lifelong skill, so it's doing a lot of it and learning. You're in a comfortable group with that same experience. I think so much of sort of feeling like you're part of the team is sort of a sense of belonging, not belonging. I think mentorship, you've alluded to it already, is sort of a really big hinge point for it. You've worked with Dr. Michelle Macy and Dr. Bill Mueller, as we've talked about. What did effective mentorship look like from your side of the table?

[00:15:33] Mario Landa: So it looked different across both my mentors, but I think the overall perspective of it was that they knew I was just a student and I wasn't going to do everything perfectly the first time. I wasn't going to know how to do everything quickly, but they still took that investment. They invested their own time to teach me how to do things and to talk to me about, this is why we do research this way. So seeing a mentor put in their own time and effort into seeing you succeed is, I think, what for me is a great mentor.

[00:16:06] Dr. Pat Seed: You've, at least based on what you've said, I've gathered you've had some pretty good mentorship relationships. If you were thinking about the next wave of undergraduates and sort of starting there, what would you build into that system, into mentorship, that academic culture sometimes leaves out?

[00:16:21] Mario Landa: Relationship or communication with your mentor is always something that's worth doing, 'cause a good mentor doesn't look the same way every single time, and no student is the same either. So having that conversation of, I want to learn how to do this, can you help me? And then the mentor being transparent, saying, I can help you do this, or I can't help you do that, is something that I think needs to happen so that there's a good mentor-mentee relationship.

[00:16:50] Dr. Pat Seed: That's excellent. Yeah, makes a lot of sense to really foster that relationship. I want to draw out for a minute and think a little bit about this research pipeline and sort of what keeps people in it and what potentially becomes a tough spot for people. First, was there any moment early on or when you almost didn't stay on the research path, and what turned that around?

[00:17:11] Mario Landa: I think there was a point early on in my undergraduate years that I thought maybe research wasn't for me. And that was because I thought research looked repetitive, because I'd only been exposed to one type of research up to that point. And going back to the Katz and Manne program, seeing that research doesn't look the same every single time, I think made that turnaround point for me that, okay, this is what I want to do. For me, it's always been I want to know why—I need to know the whys for things, of why this happens, why that happens. But there was a point where I was thinking to myself, okay, maybe I can live without answering these whys. But seeing how it could be done in so many different ways, and it's not just everyone does the same thing, you don't have to just stick to this one topic, this one field, you have wiggle room, is what kind of brought my interest back. Because in my head it was, okay, I have to pick a topic now and then just stick with it for the rest of my life. But that's not the case. I can venture off to different points, and that's what grew my interest back.

[00:18:13] Dr. Pat Seed: How much did it or does it matter to work alongside mentors who either reflect or acknowledge your background and lived experience and, what difference did that make as to how you approached your work?

[00:18:26] Mario Landa: I think it helped me build a better relationship with my mentor, which that did help me stay in the field more. Because often, at the end of the day, what a lot of undergraduates want is they want someone that they can look up to, and if their mentor is someone who has a similar experience to them, then they're more likely to want to do the work with them and not just see it as another tedious task for their application process.

[00:18:51] Dr. Pat Seed: What's one sort of unspoken rule that someone entering research might not know and that you could help decode for them?

[00:19:00] Mario Landa: A lot of skills are very applicable to other fields, and it is best to learn some of those skills early on because it will help you down the line later. So an example of this would be my first projects at DePaul were molecular methods for ecology and evolution, but using fish samples. I never wanted to work with fish, but I can apply those same lab techniques to work with microbes and then move my career forward with that path. And then just simple things like learning how to keep a journal, having your lab organized—stuff like that is often overlooked, but it's very important to learn early on, 'cause it'll make your career down the path easier.

[00:19:42] Dr. Pat Seed: A lot of students touch research once and they never return, right? What kept you from disconnecting, when you think about the first IRB slog that you had, rejection, abstract revisions, all of these things. What keeps you coming back?

[00:19:56] Mario Landa: What keeps bringing me back to research is that at the end of the day, having, like, a rejection, for example, from a journal, that doesn't affect who you are as a researcher. And just having to remind yourself that you can be a researcher without someone else telling you that you're a researcher, and then having that community that tells you, you are doing great, you should be in this path, it's a good path for you, is what kind of kept me in here. And then asking really good questions that you really want to know the answer to is something that brings me back—finding a topic that I really want to know, okay, why is this? Why do we see, for example, why do we see more fungal infections in this population than in that one? Answering questions that you want to know the answer to, that you would still pursue a path to get the answer even if someone else wasn't looking.

[00:20:44] Dr. Pat Seed: Do you ever have questions that you can't quite get the answer and it drives you crazy? Happens for me all the time.

[00:20:49] Mario Landa: Often. Or for my current research, it'll be, I've done a lot of retrospective studies, so once I'm done reviewing 500, 600 different charts, I'm like, oh, I should have added this column, and now I have to go back and I have to decide, do I want to go back and add that data for every single patient, or can I live without it?

[00:21:08] Dr. Pat Seed: And leave a question not quite answered. Imagine that there's a student right now in Chicago who reminds you of yourself at 19, right? What would they need to see or hear to believe that there's a place for them in pediatric research?

[00:21:19] Mario Landa: Seeing more people that represent them. At the end of the day, this career is foreign for a lot of different families. It's not an easy road to become an attending. So seeing someone that has done it, seeing peers that are also doing it with you, I think is very important.

[00:21:35] Dr. Pat Seed: You're a child health researcher. Is there anything that you think is unique about sort of focusing on youth versus doing adult problems as your focus of research?

[00:21:46] Mario Landa: So with pediatric research, what kind of pushed me toward committing to pediatrics was that in pediatrics it is often not the fault of the kid for their situation. And at the end of the day, the family, the primary care team, the team giving consults, they all have the same goal in mind: They want the kid to get better. And I think that is what kind of brings it home for me in pursuing pediatrics.

[00:22:11] Dr. Pat Seed: Well, I really want to thank you, Mario, for taking some time with me, sharing some of your thoughts, and it's really enjoyable to talk to you today.

[00:22:18] Mario Landa: Thank you for inviting me.