Mamoun hassan biography sample

Interview: Mamoun Hassan
A shining example

By David Robinson – Published 18 September, 1984 – The Times

Mamoun Hassan announced his resignation as managing director of the National Film Finance Corporation before the Government White Paper’s proposals for re-organising the Corporation; but it is unlikely his decision would have been altered. The declared aim of privatisation hardly seems achieved by the changes. Before, the NFFC derived its income from a levy on cinema admissions – the Eady Fund. Now the Government will put up £ 1.5m and a consortium of private investors will contribute £1.1m.

“I know what quangos are and how they work”, says Hassan. “And I know what companies are and how they work. But how will this mixture work? The most we can hope for is that the new arrangement will work as well as the old one. What the NFFC needs most is independence and vim.”

Certainly Hassan’s five and a half years at the Corporation have been characterised by independence and vim. His enthusiasm, pugnacity, taste and passionate championing of an indigenous cinema have made him a significant figure in the progressive areas of British cinema.

He has declined to publish reasons for his decision to go, but it is not hard to guess at some of them. The only small corner of official subsidy for the cinema that this country possesses, the National Film Finance Corporation is certainly in comparison with support for cinema in other European countries-derisively underfunded. Throughout most of Hassan’s period of management, the Corporation has continued in face of interminable and inconclusive Government reviews.

”It restricts your style”, says Hassan. “You can’t follow through if you don’t know whether you’re planning for today or the day after.”

Hassan has more altruistic reasons for his decision than mer

A game called Six Degrees of Kevin Brownlow would cover movie history in its entirety. The groundbreaking silent-film historian and preservationist has connected with scores of cinematic giants during a seven-decade career that began with him collecting films at age 11. The long list includes Abel Gance, whose Napoleon Brownlow restored over the course of half a century; David Lean, whose love for Brownlow’sseminal oral history The Parade’s Gone By… (1968) led to Brownlow writing Lean’s life story (David Lean: A Biography, 1996); Francis Ford Coppola, who brought a four-hour version of Napoleon tothe U.S. in 1981, then clashed with Brownlow over rights and music (“He had the rights,” acknowledges Brownlow. “I didn’t.”); and Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese, who in Brownlow’s documentary Cecil B. De Mille: An American Epic (2004), testify to their love for America’s mainstream master of spectacle.

With co-creator Andrew Mollo, Brownlow pioneered an experimental, documentary feature style in both the original “what-if movie,” It Happened Here (1964), which depicted a Nazi occupation of England, and the historical film Winstanley (1975), which re-created Gerrard Winstanley’s 1649 attempt to establish an agricultural commune on radical Christian principles. (Mollo, technical adviser on Dr. Zhivago, would go on to work as a military consultant on films like The Pianist and production designer on the popular Richard Sharpe and Horatio Hornblower TV movies.) Peter Watkins cut his teeth as a bit player and production aide on It Happened Here, then applied its lessons to his own films, such as The War Game. Peter Suschitzky shot It Happened Here at the beginning of a brilliant career containing a 26-year-and-counting run as David Cronenberg’s cinematographer and other credits like Watkins’s debut feature, Privilege (1967), and The Empire Strikes Back. (Mollo’s late brother, John, was the costume designer

Abstract

Simple Summary

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is notoriously aggressive and challenging to treat. Via their intracellular androgen receptor (AR), androgens play important roles in the biology of TNBC. MicroRNA (miRNA) molecules have been shown to mediate the biological actions of androgens. They also represent promising biomarkers for the diagnosis, prognosis, and therapy of TNBC. PCR arrays were utilized to profile the expression of 84 mRNA in human TNBC tissue samples classified according to AR expression and their metastasis status. Results revealed the association of only one miRNA, namely hsa-miR-205-5p, with metastasis. The levels of specific miRNAs such as hsa-miR-328-3p and hsa-miR-489-3p were higher in AR-positive than AR-negative TNBCs. Whereas the former was specifically higher in the metastatic AR-positive TNBC, hsa-miR-489-3p was more expressed in the non-metastatic subtype. These miRNAs may explain some of the biological effects of androgens on TNBC. Their use in the clinical setting needs further study.

Abstract

It is crucial to identify novel molecular biomarkers and therapeutic targets for triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). The androgen receptor (AR) is a regulator of TNBC, acting partially via microRNA molecules (miRNAs). In this study, we used PCR arrays to profile the expression of 84 miRNAs in 24 TNBC tissue samples, which were equally classified according to AR expression and/or metastasis. Several bioinformatics tools were then utilized to determine the potentially affected protein targets and signaling pathways. Seven miRNAs were found to be significantly more highly expressed in association with AR expression, including miR-328-3p and miR-489-3p. Increased expression of miR-205-3p was found to be significantly associated with metastasis. Certain miRNAs were specifically found to be differentially expressed in either metastatic or non-metastatic AR-positive tumors. A gene ontology (GO) analysis indicated biological ro