Operating an organization is a risky endeavor, and having a board is a preventative measure that can help businesses avoid costly errors. A trusted team of people will have the best interests of the organization in mind and can set policies and make objective decisions as a fiduciaries on behalf of the company. Although only technically required of public companies, a board of directors is a valuable asset that most companies can benefit from.
With a select number of spots available, the decision as to who will become a member of an organization’s board of directors is not one to be taken lightly. Those considered should be able to bring a significant amount of knowledge with them that can help senior leadership step back from the daily operational grinds and focus on the overall health and strategy of the business.
They might be able to bring with them business contacts and networks that will provide additional support, and are overall a crucial resource that can shape businesses for the better.
Someone who understands the weight of this responsibility is Kate Chudnovsky. With almost fifteen years of experience within the realm of corporate law including over a decade as general counsel for a national privately-held technology firm, Chudnovsky has a reputation for being able to drive results.
In addition to her executive career, she has had her hands in a number of other pots including real estate, investing and philanthropy. With a personal philosophy based in service and fellowship, Chudnovsky has sought to extend her expertise to a number of organizations in the healthcare sector working to fight cancer and other diseases.
The Gastrointestinal Research Foundation
One of Chudnovsky’s longest board membership tenures has been with the Gastrointestinal Research Foundation (GIRF). As someone with friends and family afflicted with GI diseases, GIRF’s mission to raise funds for the treatment, cure, and prevention of digestive diseases has been an important cause to her for a number of years. Chudnovsky has been a board member for over a decade, and for three years she served as the first female president of the board of directors. Most recently, she was voted as chairperson of the board. The first appointment of its kind for this organization.
GIRF is a 501c3 nonprofit founded in 1961 in honor of Dr. Joseph B. Kirsner. A pioneer in gastroenterology who dedicated his life to medicine and teaching, the foundation’s primary focus is raising funds for the scientists and physicians at the Digestive Diseases Center at the University of Chicago Medicine.
The department provides chemoprevention and surveillance for colon cancer while also providing treatment for other digestive tract and related disorders such as inflammatory bowel disease, swallowing disorders, peptic ulcer disease, hepatitis and other liver diseases, celiac disease, pancreatic disease, morbid obesity pancreatic disorders and nutrition disorders.
Since its inception over six decades ago, GIRF has worked to help the University of Chicago Medicine Digestive Diseases Center to become a globally recognized organization that is nationally ranked as one of the top in its field. Millions of dollars have been raised to facilitate the work of its highly specialized physicians to create research-driven medicine, and numerous treatment advancements and research breakthroughs have been achieved as a result.
Chudnovsky has served on the board of directors for over a decade and was president of the board of directors from 2020 to 2022. During that time she helped the nonprofit successfully steer through the unprecedented changes caused by the coronavirus pandemic. As a member of the board, Chudnovsky is responsible for raising awareness about the work of the physician-scientists, and collaborates with the executive committee and scientific advisory board to bring the organization’s vision to life.
Chudnovksy’s work at GIRF has aided in it raising over $3 million a year. It most recently announced a new initiative, CA CURE, which aims to select and fund research that improves diagnostics and develops therapeutics focused on personalized vaccines and immunotherapies.
In its first five and a half months, CA CURE awarded nearly $19 million in grants to a number of projects across a wide scope. These included grants to the Hoosier Cancer Research Network, the Mayo Clinic, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Elicio Therapeutics, the University of Iowa, Yale University, Cornell and others.
Elicio Therapeutics
While Chudnovsky’s longest tenure has been with GIRF, she also holds board memberships on a number of other organizations including a director position at Elicio Therapeutics, one of the recipients of a grant from CA CURE. A clinical-stage biotechnology company, Elicio Therapeutics has developed a proprietary Amphiphile “AMP” platform that delivers immunotherapeutics directly to the lymph nodes, targeting activation at the unique location where adaptive immune responses are generated.
Elicio Therapeutics will be using its grant from the GI Research Foundation toward the research of two therapeutic cancer vaccines. Its AMP platform “educates” T cells on how to target particular antigens such as mutated proteins in cancer, with one vaccine currently in development to target the BRAF gene mutation and the other is being developed to target hotspot mutations in p53 in solid tumors including colorectal cancer, melanoma and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The BRAF gene mutation is found to be present in 10 percent of colon cancer cases, and mutations in p53 are found in approximately 60 percent of patients with solid tumors.
xCures
Chudnovsky has continued to focus her attention on board memberships for companies working to bring innovation to the medical sector in all forms. She is on the board of directors for xCures, a technology platform designed to automatically create a comprehensive outline of a cancer patient’s medical history generated from the hospitals and clinics visited. Through the platform, patients are able to get immediate access to all of their medical data and a summary of their care in one place. This can have a huge impact on the ability to care for and treat patients, transforming complex, unstructured medical data into structured data suitable for analysis and review.
The xCures platform is also integrated with artificial intelligence which can cross-reference the data against a digital library of oncology data to match patients with potential treatments. Through this, both oncologists and the patients themselves can be more informed and make effective decisions regarding treatment.
Chudnovsky has long been passionate about philanthropy and has made considerable monetary donations over the years to a number of different charities and organizations including Mt. Sinai Hospital in Miami Beach, the University of Miami, the University of Chicago, Northwestern University and the University of Pennsylvania.
However, recognizing the value of her knowledge and skills derived from her work in the tech sector, Chudnovsky has worked to contribute her time and efforts in a way that is most impactful, becoming a board member and helping to shape organizations and bring about effective change.
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