TRIBUTES have been paid to a renowned Wirral-born scientist who collaborated with a Nobel laureate and built one of the UK's premier pharmacy schools. 

Microbiologist, Mike Brown, who died aged 92 last month, was born in Wallasey and went to St Anselm’s college in Birkenhead, before qualifying as a pharmacist from the University of Manchester and taking his PhD at the school of pharmacy, University of London.

Mike moved to Birmingham's Aston University and during the 1970s and 1980s, as head of department, he established a leading pharmacy school during a critical period of growth for the new University.

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. 

A spokesperson for Aston University said: "Serving also as a dean and as a pro-vice-chancellor at Aston University, it was typical of Mike's 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 is survived by Margaret, his four children, Sarah, Paul, Beth and Jessica, 12 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.