Holmes probably (delusionally) believed she could convince Ioannidis to recant his comments in the February 2015 JAMA article regarding "the rationale for promoting massive diagnostic testing," and maybe even the criticism of stealth research, by demonstrating how ground-breaking their technology was, and that the IP needed to be "protected."

At its time of publication, that article was (I believe) the only one in the scientific literature that said anything about Theranos, and the company seemed to be pretty disconnected from the mainstream biotech research community. Holmes was probably only vaguely aware of Ioannidis' background.