Aston Pharmacy School pays tribute to Professor Mike Brown 27 November 2023 | Birmingham, UK
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Aston Pharmacy School is sad to announce that Professor Mike Brown passed away on 10 November aged 92. During the 1970s and 1980s, as head of department, he built pharmaceutical sciences at Aston University into a premier UK pharmacy school during a critical period of growth for the new University. The department was rated "outstanding" in the 1986 University Research Assessment Exercise. He appointed a young international faculty and, for those who worked with him, he created a uniquely vibrant academic environment which excelled in both research and teaching. A microbiologist, he published over 200 papers and mentored many doctoral students before retiring in 1997 to pursue his scientific interests in other UK universities and at Stanford University in California, working with the Nobel Prize-winning Arthur Kornberg. Serving also as a dean and as a pro-vice-chancellor at Aston University, it was typical of his profound humanity and ecumenical interests that he helped to create the University’s Martin Luther King Centre to cater for all faiths, and none, in the pursuit of justice and peace through reasoned dialogue. His humanism led him to publicly express serious concerns about the direction of university management in the 1980s, concerns which were overwhelmingly endorsed at a tense meeting of all academic staff with the then vice-chancellor. His conviviality and social engagement were shared with his wife Margaret, who survives him. At their Moseley home they regularly hosted a lively community of younger colleagues exchanging views on science, life and politics. Mike wrote poetry and read widely in philosophy, culminating in the 2018 publication of his book Human Survival?, a reflection on the human condition. Even though many of his faculty colleagues are now retired and some, scattered around the world, may have not seen Mike in many years, they feel that he is still an important part of their lives. ENDS
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