Bahram Zargar

I first met Dr. Syed A. Sattar in 2011 when I started working with him as a guest PhD student at the University of Ottawa’s Centre for Research on Environmental Microbiology (CREM). I was finishing off the experimental work for my doctoral thesis at the University of Waterloo, and needed access to facilities with an operational anaerobic incubator. Dr. Sattar, who was the Founding Director of CREM, not only gave me free access to his labs but also provided me with the guidance as needed. Immediately on completion of my thesis research, I started working with him as a post-doc position in his project on the aerobiology of indoor air.

During my tenure with Dr. Sattar I closely witnessed the workings of a dedicated and hard-working scientist whose efforts had brought CREM to national and international prominence! CREM’s work was a unique blending of basic and applied research, and several of its test protocols continue to form the backbone of national and international standards. Sadly though, the changing priorities at uOttawa did not include CREM’s work and it was phased out while still generating research funding.

As I was witnessing Dr. Sattar’s career of over four decades as an impactful scientist come to an end, I proposed to him the idea of turning CREM into a commercial operation. Luckily, he accepted the suggestion after much deliberation thus leading to the founding of CREM Co Labs. While it was a risky and daring move by all accounts, especially with no financial support, I am happy to say that our joint efforts (together with my colleagues at CREM Co) in the past seven years have witnessed the evolution of the company into a self-sustaining enterprise with strong prospects for further growth! Our overall objective is to reestablish at CREM Co as many aspects of CREM’s work as possible as an R&D and contract testing laboratory. Dr. Sattar’s continuing input and reputation as a scientist continue to greatly benefit CREM Co.