That's how I read it too
And I remember "A for Andromeda" now that you mention it. Which brings up the $64,000 question: Why in Gaia's name would I want to recreate an alien "life system" here on Earth? That's just begging for trouble! Hasn't that guy ever seen a sci-fi flick? Sure, it'd be interesting to study in simulation only, but I think I'd still get more from the same number of terabits of Encyclopedia Galactica. An encyclopedia has the answers, an encoded genome is a huge pile of questions.