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36 St. Louis 2018 was a fun year filled with Superbugs, Medicinal Plants, and Innovation! Our first event was an enormous success, scheduled on March 28th at Bone Fish Grill for a dinner meeting. We were honored to have Professor Gautam Dantas from Washington University School of Medicine as our first speaker. His talk was on “Antibiotic-Resistant Superbugs”, and he also won St Louis Speaker of the Year. “Dantas’ Lab works at the interface of microbial genomics, ecology, synthetic biology, and systems biology, to understand, harness, and engineer the biochemical processing potential of microbial communities.” Our second event was on June 15th at the St Louis Botanical Gardens for a lunch meeting in the garden. Wendy Applequest, Ph.D. spoke about the identification, quality control, and systematics of medicinal plants. Wendy’s research places an emphasis on the characterization of botanical materials for biomedical research, and chemical variability within and among medicinal plant species. Our annual Scientific Symposium was September 7th and it was information filled at a wonderful venue. We had six speakers: Mahila Syed, Ph.D. (Avlon) spoke on Innovations in Textured Hair, Beth Kroeger (Steris Corporation) presented on Medical Marijuana, LaWanda Brooks (SweetHead Naturals) discussed bringing health and wellness to the hair salon, Mark Miller (Fitz Chem LLC) spoke on Consumer Trends and what they mean for your next reformulation, Jim Masucci (Monsanto) detailed what is killing our honey bees and what are we doing to combat one of their major pests, and finally Tom Meyer (Chemia) addressed Innovation in Scent: From Fine Fragrance to Functionality. Our final 2018 event was on November 15th for a dinner meeting at Favazza’s on the Hill, in the St Louis Italian district. During this event the 2019 Board Members were installed by Area II Director Yulia Park. The Annual Holiday Party and Officer Installation was a time to welcome new board members and celebrate a great year. Tiffany Collis 2018 St Louis SCC Chapter Chair