 In 1992 soon after Upstate Biotechnology, Inc. became profitable, private interests acquired control of the company and the mission was diverted from support and endowment of The W. Alton Jones Cell Science Center.Sato subsequently resigned as director and devoted himself full-time to the Manzanar Project.The project aimed at making salt water and desert combinations productive through application of the simplest, low cost rational scientific approaches had its first prototype in the Salton Sea in southern California.