Letter to the editor on 'The necessity of overhaul in perception of microbiological culture methods'.

Unarguably, clinical microbiology has got a boost from NGS technology, but in the process of this transition it has suffered a huge setback. Computational biology can find the microbial genomic variations and can link it to drug resistance, but it has so far underestimated the crucial role of microbial culture medium. The constituents and growth conditions of the medium have been documented to shuffle genomic, epigenetic and metabolic aspects of the bacterial pathogens. Ignoring these in vitro-driven evolutions and attributing the variations as normal bacterial features, responsible for drug resistance is a huge mistake. Unfortunately, it has been the trend since the inception of NGS in microbiology arena. No wonder, drug resistance is spreading unrestrained like wildfire and drug discovery is lagging behind. The urgent need to standardize culture medium by simulating it to human physiological conditions can salvage the situation and result in correct interpretations.