Professor Mike Service (1933-2017)

It is with great sadness that the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene announces the death of Professor Mike Service, who has passed away aged 84.

Professor Service became a member of RSTMH in 1971 and received the Sir Rickard Christophers Medal in 1997 in recognition of his practical and field applications in the field of tropical medicine and hygiene.

Born in 1933, he enrolled at Imperial College London in 1952 to study zoology and applied entomology.

After graduating in 1955, Professor Service worked for the Malaria Service at the Ministry of Health in Lagos, Nigeria until 1960 when he moved to Kaduna to work for the West African Institute of Trypanosomiasis Research. He returned to the UK in 1963 after completing his PhD with the University of London remotely in Nigeria.

Back in the UK, he worked for Dorset Naturalist’s Trust at Brownsea Island, a National Trust property to study biting insects, mainly mosquitoes. He then moved to the Natural Environment Research Council’s research station, Monks Wood Experimental Station near Cambridge, where a grant from the World Health Organization enabled him to study Africa’s most important malaria vector, Anopheles gambiae.

Professor Service joined the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in 1973. He lectured on all aspects of medical entomology, leading him to write his first textbook for students on medical entomology in 1980.

At the same time, he continued his international research and took part in several WHO working groups on vectors and their control, up until his retirement in 1997.

Professor Service is survived by his wife Wendy, his children and their families.