Philanthropy Spotlight: Kate Chudnovsky Facilitates Research in Cancer and Digestive Diseases

A legal professional and entrepreneur with over two decades of experience, Kate Chudnovsky has worked tirelessly throughout her life to achieve great things in her career. She has served as general counsel for an international private technology company for more than ten years, and prior to that worked in corporate law, mergers and acquisitions, business banking, real estate and bankruptcy for a prestigious national law firm. She also holds her real estate broker’s license and is the director of a real estate agency, and has invested in a number of other projects including a telehealth start-up, a private healthcare organization and a helicopter airport. 

These accomplishments have given Kate the opportunity to put into action her personal philosophy of paying it forward, and while she has and continues to make major donations toward the causes she champions, her involvement in philanthropic causes has gone well beyond monetary support. In particular, Kate focuses much of her efforts in the healthcare sector, and has extended her expertise in law and business to a number of organizations in the healthcare sector working to fight cancer and other diseases. 

The GI Research Foundation 

Kate Chudnovsky has been involved with the University of Chicago’s Gastro-Intestinal Research Foundation for well over a decade. A 501c3 nonprofit, the GI Research Foundation is dedicated to raising funds for the physicians and scientists at the Digestive Diseases Center at the University of Chicago Medicine. The foundation was started in 1961 in honor of the late Dr. Joseph B. Kirsner, a gastroenterology pioneer who had dedicated his life to medicine, teaching and patient care, and over the past 60 years it has assisted the Digestive Disease Center at the University of Chicago Medicine become an internationally recognized organization. 

The GI Research Foundation has raised millions of dollars, which have facilitated countless research breakthroughs and treatment advancements, but digestive diseases and cancer remain one of the most serious health problems the United States faces today. Colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death among both men and women in the United States, and digestive diseases necessitate a quarter of all surgical operations. More Americans are hospitalized with digestive diseases than any other conditions.

For three years, Kate served as president of the board of directors for the GI Research Foundation. The first female president in the history of the organization, in her role she worked with the scientific advisors and executive committee to help advance the vision of the organization, ensuring that the board and the organization’s supporters were kept of the ways in which their contributions were helping the physicians and scientists working at the Digestive Diseases Center at the University of Chicago Medicine. As president, she has said it is her privilege to witness the direct line between an idea in a laboratory to a treatment that will ultimately transform someone’s life.

Annual GIRF Ball

One highlight of Kate’s time as president was her work on the organization’s largest annual fundraiser. Typically an event that sees over 500 attendees and raises over $1 million each year, but in 2020 social distancing measures in light of the coronavirus pandemic meant that the ball could not be held in-person. It was vital that the GI Research Foundation continue to receive support at levels seen in previous years, and Kate was pivotal in taking the event virtual. 2020 saw over 1,000 guests attend the virtual event from living rooms across the country. 

CA CURE

Another project Kate has executed during her tenure as president of the GI Research Foundation is CA CURE, a multi-million dollar funding initiative aimed at curing cancers of the digestive system. Focusing on projects that may struggle to obtain funding due to their experimental nature or early stage in the development process, according to Kate CA CURE has the ability to quickly put vital research dollars in the hands of leading scientists.

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