 While director of the Lake Placid Center from 1983 to 1992, Sato established the Manzanar Project named after the camp where he and his family were interned in 1942.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.