The arc of Aileen Chuck’s life stretched from the streets of Shanghai, China, in the 1937 Japanese invasion to an estate gift to City of Hope® that will reach decades into the future.
A $5 million gift made from the Aileen and Gilbert Chuck Charitable Trust has added to a previous $1.2 million contribution from their estate and established an endowment that will train 10 oncology fellows a year at City of Hope’s Los Angeles campus. The Chuck Family Trust Endowment for Clinical Fellowships is the largest gift made by the Gilbert and Aileen Chuck estate since her passing in 2023. Gilbert Chuck was diagnosed with cancer and treated at City of Hope but lost his battle in 2016.
Trustee Ron Purdy met with many organizations that Aileen had in her estate plans, but he was most impressed with the physicians he met at City of Hope and the education programs they described.
“They will get 350 applicants, and then only three are chosen for a particular program. Those are tough odds. The applicants come from all over the world for that chance,” Purdy said. “They really sold Kevin Staker, the other trustee, and me when they talked about setting this up in perpetuity. One of these fellows is going to make a groundbreaking discovery in something!”
One of the physicians Purdy met was Vijay Trisal, M.D., system chief clinical officer and Dr. Norman & Melinda Payson Professor in Medicine. Trisal himself was a fellow at City of Hope.
Trisal said, “Clinical fellows extend City of Hope’s deep expertise in specialized cancer treatments and our culture of exquisite compassion to patients around the world. Working alongside our skilled physician-scientists, they gain crucial training in innovative therapies and techniques that they will carry throughout their careers. The Chuck Family Trust’s generous support will ensure that this critical educational program endures far into the future.”
The Aileen and Gilbert Chuck Charitable Trust has a strong interest in medical education: it also gave $2 million to the University of Hawaiʻi Maui College this year to provide full scholarships for nursing students. That gift created the Kam Scholars Program, named for Aileen’s father.
Edwin T. Kam was born on Kauaʻi in 1904 and trained as a physician in China and at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1937, when Aileen was five, the Chinese government asked Kam to serve as director of a Red Cross hospital in Shanghai during the Japanese invasion. Japanese soldiers displaced Aileen, her mother and her sister from their residence. The family was not reunited until after the war, in Hawaii.
According to Purdy, the childhood experience was a traumatic episode Aileen never forgot. She was proud of her family’s history and her father’s contributions to medicine. Edwin Kam had a 50-year career in medicine and contributed to many causes, including the construction of the Katherine Lui Hall elementary school on the island of Kaui and the creation of academic scholarships at the University of Hawaii.
In 1955, Aileen received a bachelor’s degree in education from Wheelock College and married Gilbert Chuck, who received a master’s degree in aeronautical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The couple moved to California so Gilbert could work for the United States space program. Gilbert and Aileen constructed a private school called Woodland Hills Preschool and Elementary, and she operated it for a decade before selling it and retiring.
They had two sons, Edwin and Steven. Steven became a medical researcher and served as vice president of research and development at Gilead Sciences, Inc., in Foster City, California. He played a significant role in bringing therapies for the treatment of HIV/Aids and other life-threatening diseases to market. Steven was diagnosed with leukemia and passed away in 2013.
Pride in their son’s work led Aileen and Gilbert Chuck to donate to medical research during their married life. Aileen was a member of a local women’s group that helped raise funds for City of Hope.
“She was really interested in medical research. It’s all through notes she took throughout her life. It’s what her son did,” Purdy said.
Aaron Lewis, M.D., assistant clinical professor, Division of Surgical Oncology, Department of Surgery, can testify to the impact of fellowships at City of Hope,: “The City of Hope fellowship completely changed the trajectory of my career, allowing me to study with some of the best minds in the field and giving me the skills to perform complex procedures that only a handful of surgeons are qualified to perform.”