The Cailide family was highly perplexed by what their father faced. Gabriel Cailide, a refugee from formerly Communist Romania, ever athletic, and never a heavy smoker, had been fighting a persistent cough for close to two years, without any respite or persuasive diagnosis.

As his condition began during the COVID-19 crisis, Mr. Cailide’s first doctor recommended steroids and an inhaler. When a chest X-ray, CT scan, and biopsy were finally performed, they indicated Mr. Cailide had stage 4 lung cancer.

Some specialists concluded he might not have more than a year to live.

Mr. Cailide sought treatment at UT Southwestern’s Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center, where David Gerber, M.D., Professor of Internal Medicine, and a lung cancer specialist, offered a novel treatment combination on a clinical trial.

As a result of this cutting-edge therapy protocol, Mr. Cailide has been in remission for four years. Dr. Gerber and Mr. Cailide have formed a strong physician-patient bond. Not only is Mr. Cailide a valued participant in many of Dr. Gerber’s advanced lung cancer clinical trials, but his immediate family, led by his daughter, Gabriela Cleveland, has made numerous grateful patient gifts to support Dr. Gerber’s life-saving work and research.

A bewildering case

Born and raised in Romania, Gabriel Cailide defected from his home country, landing in San Francisco at the age of 31. He then moved to Houston, where he would reunite with his first wife, Doina, and their 1-year-old daughter Agatha, who now goes by Gabriela.

With a master’s degree in mechanical engineering, Mr. Cailide easily found work in the hydraulics field. His first personal encounter with cancer was through his wife, who developed a fatal glioblastoma two days after her 30th birthday.

Mr. Cailide was left to raise his daughter, Gabriela, on his own. In 2010, he met banker Suzie Zappin at a dance competition. Soon after, the three of them—Mr. Cailide, Gabriela, and Suzie—settled in Dallas, where they have lived ever since. A lifelong sportsman, Mr. Cailide was an Olympic-level gymnast and also pursued swimming and tennis.

Mr. Cailide began complaining of a persistent cough in 2019. After treatment with steroids and antibiotics for what was thought to be bronchitis proved ineffective, X-rays and a CT Scan scan followed.

“After the scans, my doctor called me and said, “We need to talk,” Mr. Cailide said. “Whenever a doctor asks to talk, you can be sure it’s not because you’ve won the lottery.”

Tests revealed a tumor in one lung. Gabriela immediately reached out to UT Southwestern’s Simmons Cancer Center to get help for her father, which ultimately brought Mr. Cailide and Dr. Gerber together.

“Dr. Gerber is an amazing gentleman – so incredibly knowledgeable and so wonderfully prepared,” Mr. Cailide said. “I was extremely lucky to have him in my life. God bless him is all I can say about Dr. Gerber and his team.”

Doctor versus cancer

Dr. Gerber recalls first meeting Mr. Cailide in 2020. “Knowing that Mr. Cailide was not a lifelong smoker, we thought there was a high likelihood he had a molecular target for lung cancer treatment,” Dr. Gerber said. “That implies that besides the traditional option of chemotherapy, there is the option of targeted therapy. In the case of lung cancer, this could mean pills rather than IV treatments. Depending on the target, these oral medications can be highly effective.”

After Dr. Gerber performed highly sensitive biomarker genetic tests on Mr. Cailide, he discovered that the lung cancer was traceable to a mutation in the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) molecule. This molecular aberration occurs in about 15% of lung cancer patients overall, but in about 70% of nonsmokers with lung cancer.

Armed with this information, Dr. Gerber gave Mr. Cailide an FDA-approved targeted therapy: the drug osimertinib.

“After two months of the osimertinib treatment, we observed the tumor in Mr. Cailide’s left lower lung had shrunk by more than half,” Dr. Gerber said.

Mr. Cailide’s use of osimertinib coincided with a clinical trial Dr. Gerber was conducting at UT Southwestern. The trial aimed to determine whether the effectiveness of osimertinib could be improved by combining it with a form of focused radiation therapy called stereotactic radiation.

“This radiation application is quite different from conventional radiation for lung cancer, which has the risk of hitting a lot more healthy tissue,” Dr. Gerber said. “Stereotactic radiation is very precise and can be limited to as few as three treatments. In Mr. Cailide’s case, it was so successful we were able to reduce his radiation to a single treatment.”

As for Mr. Cailide, he could not be happier with the results from his combined oral medication-radiation treatment. “To this day, all of my CT scans are stable and clear,” Mr. Cailide said. “I don’t care if I have to take the osimertinib tablet until I hopefully live to be 85. One pill a day? I can live with that.”

A gift for a healthier future

“Our family supports Dr. Gerber’s research because all of his cutting-edge work – especially in the area of targeted radiation treatment along with certain oral medications – will help many patients in the future,” said Ms. Cleveland.

Ms. Cleveland, who runs a legal recruitment company, was the first to refer her father to Dr. Gerber on the recommendation of her Dallas neighbor, Mack Mitchell, M.D., UT Southwestern’s Vice President of Medical Affairs. She has made several gifts to support Dr. Gerber’s research in gratitude for the care her father received.

“It’s been almost five years since my father was first diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, but thanks to Dr. Gerber, his zest for life is stronger than ever,” Ms. Cleveland said. “Recently he enjoyed a European river boat cruise and is planning trips to Romania and Mexico. He goes to the gym and plays the drums every day.”

Ms. Cleveland hopes that her family’s gifts towards Dr. Gerber’s work will eventually help him obtain National Institutes of Health funding, that “will mean much more funding for Dr. Gerber to continue his very important research,” she said. “We remain so hopeful that our gifts will help Dr. Gerber discover something that will help fight those puzzling lung cancer mutations like the one my father had.”

The Cailide-Cleveland family’s level of grateful patient philanthropy is, for Dr. Gerber, “remarkable, because these gifts allow us to be more creative in our approach to our research,” he said. Dr. Gerber confirms that over the last three years, under Ms. Cleveland’s direction, her family has made close to a dozen separate gifts supporting his research.

“Their crucial support has another impact: allowing us to pursue high-risk, high-reward research directions that we might not be able to get funded from government or foundation sources,” Dr. Gerber said. “The Cailide-Cleveland family have been the largest donors over the last year to all of my research programs.”

Dr. Gerber’s latest research, first launched thanks to local philanthropic support, has led to a change in national policy by the Food and Drug Administration and the National Cancer Institute, as they now no longer recommend excluding patients from cancer clinical trials who had an earlier cancer diagnosis.

“When I do research, dollars from a grateful patient donor feel very different to me than dollars from a federal source or foundation grant,” Dr. Gerber said. “Donor gifts, especially from a grateful patient family, clearly reflect a conscious decision based on my relationship with them. It has led these families to have a degree of hope, faith, and trust – and there is no honor greater than that for a researcher.”

• Dr. Gerber holds the David Bruton, Jr. Professorship in Clinical Cancer Research.
• Dr. Mitchell holds the Nancy S. and Jeremy L. Halbreich Professorship in Gastroenterology.