The ability to culture organisms is the single most important roadblock to understanding. Even if a new culturing technique only enables you to grow .00001 % of the bacterial species out there that is still a 100 fold increase in the number that we can now study at scale. DNA sequencing has made it possible to identify new species by looking at their 16s ribosomal RNA, but if you are looking for small molecules and proteins you have to be able to amplify the whole organism, not just its nucleic acids.<p>Huge deal, expect much more to come from microbiologists using this culturing technique.