MEDICAL research charity Hope is more than £100,000 better off thanks to a donation by the Freemasons' Grand Charity.

The money is to be used for meningitis research and was handed over to Professor John Heckels at the Southampton University laboratories.

Professor Heckels' team has a unique set of samples for research following an outbreak of meningitis at the university in 1998.

Researchers have also developed new laboratory techniques and are combining these with the latest scientific analysis methods.

A vaccine has recently been found for the C-strain of the disease and is now in use.

But the B-strain is more complicated and more than 3,000 proteins have to be screened to find the right combination to make the vaccine.

Hope director Ray Kipling said: "Meningitis kills more than 150 children every year in the UK.

The research to find a vaccine is painstaking and complicated work.

Our project was under threat as Hope had run out of funds for this research, which is why we issued the appeal to the Freemasons.

"Their generous response will allow us to carry on and find this vaccine."