Professor , Chair of the Department of Biomedical Sciences & Vice Dean for Basic Sciences , Marshall University Joan C . Edwards School of Medicine
Gary O . Rankin
Professor , Chair of the Department of Biomedical Sciences & Vice Dean for Basic Sciences , Marshall University Joan C . Edwards School of Medicine
DAWN NOLAN
As an original faculty member and now the chair of the Department of Biomedical Sciences and vice dean for Basic Sciences at the Marshall University Joan C . Edwards School of Medicine , Gary Rankin has had the special privilege of teaching pharmacology and toxicology to every class of medical students in the school ’ s history .
Rankin joined the Marshall University School of Medicine ( MUSOM ) as an assistant professor in 1978 . During his first year , he helped develop a pharmacology syllabus — a subject the school wasn ’ t teaching at the time — and made an effort to obtain funding . He received his first grant for the project in 1979 and was able to build it into a successful program . At the request of his mentor , Dr . Donald Robinson , Rankin served as interim chair for MUSOM ’ s Department of Pharmacology from 1984-1986 . He officially became chair of the department and remained so until 2005 . Rankin then served as chair of the newly merged Department of Pharmacology , Physiology and Toxicology from 2005- 2016 . Finally , when the dean combined all of the basic sciences in the medical school , Rankin was asked to chair the resulting Department of Biomedical Sciences and become vice dean for Basic Sciences .
“ Many of the physicians I have helped train and mentor have risen to high levels of leadership in the West Virginia health care system ,” Rankin says . “ I am proud of them and feel honored to have been a part of their path to success .”
A native of Arkansas , Rankin originally wanted to be an astronaut and study aerospace engineering . However , the lingering effects from a serious leg injury and his growing disinterest in engineering led him to instead pursue a degree in chemistry . He was then inspired by a close friend with grand mal epilepsy to use his expertise to help create a better drug to treat the condition . This led Rankin first to the
Photo by Marshall University .
graduate program in medical chemistry at the University of Mississippi , then to a postdoctoral training program in pharmacology at the Medical College of Ohio .
“ At this point , I decided my career in research would be to investigate how drugs , agricultural agents and industrial compounds induced toxicity to the kidney ,” he says .
Rankin credits his father for encouraging him to further his education despite the family ’ s low income and his own eighth grade education .
“ He indicated that he couldn ’ t afford to pay for my college education but that he would help me find a job to pay for
86 WEST VIRGINIA EXECUTIVE