An Upper East Side father who went viral on TikTok in a desperate search for a stem cell donor for his teenage son said his family was moving forward with a less-than-perfect match after failing to find an ideal one.

Juan Uribe created the account in February to help find a match for his son Max, who needed a stem cell transplant.

His posts quickly drew millions of views and prompted more than 200,000 people to request donor kits through the National Marrow Donor Program, which operates the world’s largest registry of blood stem cell donors.

Despite the overwhelming response, Uribe said a perfect match was never found.

“We've run out of time,” Uribe told NY1. “We can't really continue to wait and hope for the perfect match, but we're going to have to just go with the best match that's available based on where the disease is at that point in time.”

Uribe said Max is now preparing for the next phase of treatment, which includes chemotherapy ahead of the transplant.

“They're going to be giving him chemotherapy. And that just makes you really sick. We'll lose hair. We'll be nauseous, flu-like symptoms all the time. And it's going to be awful, is unfortunately the best way of describing it,” Uribe said.

Dr. Jeffery Auletta, the senior vice president for a division at NMDP called the CIBMTR and Clinical Services, explained that the chemotherapy given before a transplant is known as a “conditioning regimen,” which clears out a patient’s existing blood-forming stem cells to make way for new ones. The process that follows, called engraftment, is the first key milestone after receiving donor cells.

After what he described as a long recovery process, Uribe said he hoped Max would be, essentially, “cured of the disease.”

“There’s always the risk of relapse and things like that, but hopefully he avoids that. But it's going to be a long journey,” Uribe told NY1.

Even without a match for Max, Uribe’s campaign made a historic impact.

According to NMDP, about 100,000 people requested cheek swab kits tied to Max’s story in less than three months .

Erica Sevilla, a spokesperson, wrote in a statement to NY1, “That response in less than three months is the biggest response we have ever seen to a patient story in such a short time.”

The search also highlighted disparities in donor matching. Data shows white patients have about a 79% chance of finding a match, compared to 48% for Hispanic or Latino patients. Max, who is half white and half Hispanic, faced longer odds due to his genetic background.

NMDP said more than half of the people who requested kits for “Team Max” came from diverse backgrounds, a shift advocates say is critical to improving match rates.

Still, Uribe said only about half of those who requested kits had completed the process by returning them.

“If you can't help my son, you could help another person and potentially save their life,” Uribe said. “If you just do the math, there's probably 1,000 lives to be saved if those people return those kits.”

For some donors, the impact is deeply personal.

Ron Jacob, now director of member recruitment at NMDP, said he joined the registry after a friend was diagnosed with leukemia. Though his friend died, Jacob later learned he was a perfect match for another patient.

He described the donation process as involving medication to boost stem cells, followed by a collection procedure similar to drawing blood.

“On the fifth day, I went to the center itself for the collection, and they drew the blood from one arm that went into a machine, and it spun the blood and just retrieved just those blood stem cells that were formed from the medication for the actual donation. And then the remaining blood went back into my other arm,” he explained.

Jacob said the soreness he experienced was gone within 24 hours. Though he never met the recipient, he referred to her as his “genetic sister.”

“It's someone who was given the worst news in the world, and I had the opportunity to steal some time for her,” he told NY1.

“You might be the only person in the world who has the ability to save that person's life. Often, we think about our loved ones and what if it was them. And if we hope, wish and pray that a random stranger would save the life of our loved one, I think the same thing should be asked of us,” Jacob added.

People between the ages of 18 and 35 can join the registry by requesting a kit through NMDP.