UMass Medical School holding coronavirus treatment, prevention studies with Johns Hopkins

Photo | Grant Welker UMass Medical School in Worcester

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By Grant Welker

UMass Medical School in Worcester is collaborating with Johns Hopkins University on two new coronavirus treatment and prevention studies using convalescent plasma.

The work is seeking to determine whether antibodies from those who've recovered from coronavirus can help those who've either been recently exposed or have symptoms from getting sicker. The two studies are looking in particular at whether giving people antibodies earlier in the illness is effective at treating the virus and in preventing those exposed to it from catching the disease.

"Interested patients need to be tested and treated within one week from exposure or onset of symptoms, so timing is critical," said Dr. Jonathan Gerber, the hospital's chief of hematology and oncology, medical director of its cancer center, and the Eleanor Eustis Farrington Chair in Cancer Research at UMass Medical School.

Because the trial is randomized, it should help provide a definitive answer on the benefits of convalescent plasma, Gerber said.

The studies, taking place at the medical school campus in Worcester, seek to enroll those who have been recently exposed to the virus or are newly diagnosed and have symptoms. Participants are compensated.

UMass Medical School received U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval in April to use convalescent plasma from a recovered patient, and said shortly thereafter it saw encouraging results from the first patient it has treated with the plasma. After hours of transfusion, the critically ill patient dramatically improved and was being weaned off a ventilator, shortly after the ventilator had to be brought to near maximum settings to get enough oxygen.

Health researchers have been working to determine exactly how beneficial convalescent plasma can be for coronavirus patients. Plasma in a recovered coronavirus patient contains antibodies allowing for that person's immune system to fight the virus, according to the FDA.

CORRECTION: It is UMass Medical School, not UMass Memorial Medical Center, that has partnered with Johns Hopkins.