Calgary, AB — Canadian researcher Dr. Harold Jennings developed the first vaccine in the world that effectively protects infants against the dreaded bacterial disease meningitis. This remarkable achievement has earned Jennings this year's prestigious Manning Award of Distinction.

Jennings, a Principal Research Officer at the National Research Council of Canada's Institute of Biological Sciences in Ottawa, spent nearly 25 years researching, developing and bringing to commercialization the first-ever synthetic vaccine that protects infants against Group C meningitis — the most common form of the disease to strike youngsters.

"In the future, we should be able to eradicate bacterial meningitis," Jennings says.

Jennings has won the $25,000 Manning Award of Distinction sponsored by CanWest Global Communications Inc. Since 1982, the Manning Awards program has recognized leading Canadian innovators with more than $2.9 million in prize money. This year's four winners will share a total of $145,000.

Meningitis is a potentially fatal infection of the fluid and lining of the brain and spinal cord. Between 250 to 750 cases of meningococcal disease occur every year in Canada. About one in 20 people with meningitis die, while others suffer mental retardation, hearing loss and loss of limbs.

Jennings and his team were the first to patent a method that chemically combines the complex sugars covering the surface of the Group C meningitis bacteria with a protein. This technique produced a new, combined or "conjugate" vaccine that is now saving hundreds of lives around the world.

Conjugate Group C vaccine is part of mass-immunization programs in the United Kingdom to protect every infant under two years old from meningitis. Last year, Alberta became the first province to provide the vaccine for routine immunization of all infants. The Meningitis Research Foundation of Canada wants the vaccine to be used across the country to protect infants and older children.

Jennings has also developed a promising new conjugate vaccine for Group B meningitis, for which there is now no effective vaccine for infants, older children or adults. Health care giant Baxter International Inc. has taken this vaccine into phase-one clinical trials.

Dr. Arthur Carty, President of the National Research Council of Canada, says the innovative techniques that Jennings pioneered promise a new generation of vaccines against a wide variety of diseases, including cancer, influenza and pneumonia. Jennings' achievements, and the recognition of his work by the Manning Foundation, underscore the need for Canada to invest in research "for the long term, to have a solid base of excellence in the underlying science and the creativity in finding out how to apply it," Dr. Carty says.

The Ernest C. Manning Awards Foundation will announce all four of this year's award recipients, including the $100,000 Manning Principal Award, throughout September prior to the annual awards dinner gala Oct. 4 in Ottawa.