[14] Brown was educated at Belfast Royal Academy[8] and St Catharine's College, Cambridge, where he was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1977[8] followed by a PhD in 1981 for research on the molecular organisation and evolution of rodent genomes[15] supervised by Gabriel Dover.

[4][9][16] He subsequently pioneered efforts to functionally annotate the mouse genome and identify and generate novel disease models through mutagenesis and phenotyping.

[9] For example, research in Brown's laboratory has shown that a mutation in the Evi1 gene increases susceptibility to inflammation of the middle ear (otitis media) in mice, leading to hearing loss.

[19] He is chair of the International Mouse Phenotyping Consortium steering committee and joint editor-in-chief of the journal Mammalian Genome.

Notably, in collaboration he has utilised the mouse to study the genetics of deafness, identifying key proteins involved in auditory transduction, which has transformed our understanding in this field.