Doctors at UMass Medical School are studying whether convalescent plasma can be used to stop the coronavirus in its early stages, or even prevent infection to those recently exposed to the disease.

Convalescent plasma contains antibodies from recovered COVID-19 patients.

In the spring, UMass Memorial Health Care was the first provider in the state to use it to treat people and since then they've treated nearly 160 severely ill patients.

The school is conducting two trials. One group will be people recently diagnosed with COVID-19.

The other will be people who were in close contact with someone who had the virus and tested negative.

"This is completely outpatient. There is one day where we need to screen them and get blood samples. We need to test them for covid. If they are negative for covid they might be eligible for the exposure prevention trial. If they are positive for covid they may be eligible for the early treatment trial. Then they would typically come back the second day and get the transfusion of the plasma," said Dr. Jonathan Gerber, the Chief of Division of Hematology/oncology for UMass Memorial Health Care.

Patients must be over the age of 18 to participate in the trial. If you are interested n participating, you can visit www.covisplasmatrial.org.