A Cylon...Nose?

A lot of synthetic biology is about getting biology to be more like electrical engineering, designing genetic "logic gates" to create a living circuit board. Beyond analogies, however, cells have many fascinating electrical properties--proteins that transfer electrons like wires, membranes that separate ions and create an electrical charge that drives the metabolism of the cell, channels through these membranes that open and close to activate an electro-biological response. Electrons are electrons whether they are in proteins or copper wires, and many scientists have designed ways to connect the soft and squishy electrical flows of living systems to the hard electricity of computers, creating hybrid cyborgs that play to the different but compatible strengths of cells and computers. One emergent application of such technology is in the design of chemical sensors, connecting the amazing ability of cells to sense and respond to very small changes in the environment to a human-readable output on a computer screen or even to a robot that can move and seek out the source of a chemical.

Link: Cyborg Noses