After decades in medicine, Laura I. Rankin (73MD), has a clear perspective on progress—what happens when it accelerates, and what’s at stake when it doesn’t.

Rankin’s connection to the University of Iowa began when she came to Iowa City for medical school, joining a class of 150 students that included just 13 women. Like many of her peers at the time, she encountered questions about whether women belonged in medicine long-term. She and her twelve female classmates went on to prove otherwise, building careers defined by persistence, impact, and care.

That foundation—and the rigor of her training at Iowa—has stayed with her.

Throughout her career as a nephrologist in Oklahoma, Rankin saw fields like her own remain largely stagnant for years, even as patient numbers continued to grow. Only recently have research approaches and new therapies begun to meaningfully change how chronic and acute kidney disease are treated. “If you don’t think about and investigate how things happen, you cannot improve care and outcomes,” said Rankin.

That belief led her to invest in companies focused on rapid detection of brain injury, improved treatment for inflammatory bowel disease, using electronic health record data to predict sepsis in ICU settings, and, more recently, to establish the Laura Rankin Innovation Fund within the University of Iowa’s Office of Innovation.

During recent visits to campus, Rankin was struck by the pace and practicality of innovation happening across the university—from advances in pharmaceuticals and medical devices to the collaborative spaces where clinicians, researchers, engineers, and students work side by side. “What stood out to me was how mainstream and fast-moving it all felt,” she says. “That kind of continued progress is essential.”

The Laura Rankin Innovation Fund is designed to support early-stage ideas and hands-on experimentation, particularly through the Medical Innovation Launch Lab (MILL), opening this Spring on the third floor of the Iowa Bioscience Innovation Facility. By providing flexible resources for supplies, prototyping, and testing, the fund helps innovators move quickly from identifying a clinical need to developing a potential solution.

Rankin is especially passionate about empowering frontline health care professionals. “Doctors and nurses see needs every single day,” she says. “If someone thinks, ‘I wish I had something that did this,’ the response shouldn’t be ‘that’s impossible.’ It should be, ‘let’s try to make it."

Rankin sees private philanthropy as a critical catalyst. “If private individuals can help science move forward, then we need to do that.” Through the Laura Rankin Innovation Fund, she is investing in momentum—ensuring that promising ideas at Iowa don’t stall for lack of resources, and that innovation continues to translate into better care for patients.