Pedro Jose Rivarola, a naturalized American from Argentina, has become the hope of cancer patients around the world.

His Max Foundation provides support for people with blood cancers and for their families, administers donations of a new leukemia drug, and works to increase the availability of stem cell tissue, marrow and blood within under-served ethnic groups.

Rivarola’s son Max died in 1991 for want of such a match and his grieving father has spent the last decade helping improve the quality of life and survival rates for cancer patients.

The Foundation was originally focused on serving juvenile patients of Hispanic and Latin American origin; the mission has now broadened to include any-age patient with a blood-related cancer in a developing country. Rivarola campaigns constantly for marrow and blood donations and notes that matches are most common within ethnic groupings; it’s a serious matter for patients if there are not enough donors who are possible matches.

Rivarola says he has a role model for his persistence in the face of enormous obstacles--his late son Max. He describes the boy’s bravery during years of pain, and his undaunted strength in the struggle. “I’m just following his steps,” says Rivarola. “I didn’t know I had that strength.”