Engineered products in biological systems often rely on familiar electromechanical technology. A relatively new field of synthetic biology offers a complementary collection of biological tools that can be integrated in new engineered products to solve outstanding problems in both biotechnology and medicine. This seminar will first review some of the existing sensory, regulatory, and decision tools and some of the underlying experimental technology. In the second half, the ongoing research efforts in building integrated devices for synthesis of dynamical biological behaviours will be presented. No prior knowledge of biology is assumed so anyone is welcome to attend.