The Daily Mail reports (emphasis added):
We could soon be able to design cells or entire organisms using computer software and 3D printers, a scientist has claimed. The cells could be used to create biofuels, combat global warming, develop new healthcare and medicines and even recreate alien lifeforms on earth, if alien DNA is ever found. J.Craig Venter – who helped map the human genome and created the world’s first synthetic life form in 2010 – details the theory in his new book Life at the Speed of Light: From the Double Helix to the Dawn of Digital Life.
“The day is not far off when we will be able to send a robotically controlled genome sequencing unit to other planets to read the DNA sequence of any alien microbe life that may be there,” claimed Venter.
“If we can beam them back to Earth we should be able to reconstruct their genomes . . .”
I seem to remember something like this was tried in Species. Didn’t work out so well.