Most people download TikTok for fun. For Juan Uribe, it was a decision made out of desperation and love.
“I’m posting this because I need your help to save my son,” Uribe said in his first video, posted on February 10. “This is my first time posting on social media, so please forgive me if I don’t understand it properly.”
His son Max, 15, has a rare blood disease that can quickly turn into a fatal blood cancer unless a donor for a stem cell transplant is found.
Max’s complex genetic makeup – Colombian from his father and half Italian, British and half German from his mother – made it difficult to find a perfect match. Minorities are underrepresented in national stem cell registries.
NMDP, a nonprofit organization focused on helping patients with blood cancers and disorders, says available donors vary widely depending on a patient’s ethnic background.
For example, Black and African American patients have a 29% chance of finding a perfect donor match in the NMDP registry, which is said to be the most diverse registry in the world. The probability is 48% for Hispanics and 79% for non-Hispanic whites.
When it became clear that the family needed to accelerate donor matching, Uribe remembers thinking, “What’s the best way to reach out to the most people? Are there any influencers who might post about this?”
Instead, Uribe has unexpectedly become an influencer himself. His first video received 20.5 million views and 4.3 million likes.
“The response was incredible. It was overwhelming,” Uribe said, adding that her video grew further with shares from celebrities like Joe Jonas and Meghan Trainor. “Team Max,” as Uribe calls his supportive followers, now includes more than 100,000 people and growing.
Within 24 hours of Uribe’s post, 12,000 people had signed up to receive cheek swab kits in the mail, according to NMDP.
The NMDP Registry reports that only 13% of its members identify as Hispanic, but Max’s campaign is changing that, with nearly 56% of registrants identifying as Latino/Hispanic, a 40% increase, the organization told USA TODAY.
“It is important now that they be proactive in returning their kits and donating them not just to Max, but to any patient in need,” NMDP said.
The outpouring of support has given Uribe’s family hope that they will find a donor match for Max, but the search is far from over.
“Given our son’s schedule, this is a critical moment,” she said, adding that doctors expect there are only a few weeks left before Max’s condition deteriorates further. “Because of progress, we’re in a bit of a race against time.”
Max’s story
Max was 6 years old when blood tests first showed that something was wrong. His platelets, red blood cells, and white blood cells were all much lower than they should be.
Doctors ruled out leukemia, but continued to monitor Max’s growth. In December 2024, another blood draw revealed that the levels had dropped even further. Surveillance has been increased. Max was hoping that he was just dealing with a temporary infection and that his levels would recover, but that wasn’t the case. In August 2025, a bone marrow biopsy revealed what Max’s doctors called a “pink flag,” Uribe explained, recounting the doctor’s words that changed their lives. “We should add a transplant doctor to Max’s treatment team.”
“This shows us that this is a very serious problem,” Uribe said.
To this day, no one knows the cause of Max’s illness, Uribe said, but after countless tests, his doctors agree that “if left untreated, he will develop MDS, and the only cure is a transplant.”
MDS (myelodysplastic syndromes) is a group of diseases caused by malfunctioning blood cells. It is thought to be a type of cancer that can progress to acute myeloid leukemia (AML).
But when we checked the register, we found that only two of the 40 million donors had exact matches. Upon further investigation, neither worked and Max was unable to participate in the match. Even Max’s twin sister wasn’t a perfect match.
Uribe is now on a mission to add one million new people to the registry by April 1.
“I feel sorry for all fathers because they make such a fuss about their kids, but he’s a great guy,” Uribe said, recalling how Max helped bullied kids from a young age, always looked out for his younger sister, and grew into a curious and dedicated student.
His interests also range from sports (he loves playing sports with his friends, Uribe said) to art (including his own piano songs on Spotify), his father said with a big smile.
Team Max can ‘save countless lives’
Uribe knows that his mission also involves helping others.
Since the story went viral on social media, Uribe said he has also been contacted by other families looking for hard-to-match donors. The families include a 3-year-old Utah boy of Cambodian and Norwegian descent who is struggling to find a match, a 22-year-old boy with Haitian and Irish genes in desperate need of a fully matched donor, and even a young child in Max’s school community in need of a stem cell transplant.
“This is more widespread than you think,” Uribe said. “There are many other patients who do not want to be publicly identified.”
According to the NMDP, some ethnic groups have more complex tissue types than others, which can make it more difficult to find a good match.
“This is why it is important to have a diverse donor pool where people from all cultures, backgrounds and traditions can find matches,” the organization notes.
So what started as Uribe’s effort to help his son has expanded into an even bigger impact.
“The easiest way to save a life”
So how can we help Max and others like him? For more information or to register as a donor, readers can visit NMDP’s page here: https://go.nmdp.org/formax
The process is incredibly simple, free and painless, Uribe says.
If you collect a cheek swab by mail, you will be registered confidentially. If you are matched with a patient, you will be contacted to obtain detailed health information. If suitability is confirmed, the actual donation will then be made. This is a similar process to donating plasma or platelets.
“Everyone should be registered as soon as possible. That’s the easiest way to save lives,” Uribe urged.
