
Oshiorenoya Agabi grew up taking discarded things apart in Lagos. At Koniku, he is putting living cells and electronics together to give machines a sense of smell.

A professor told Osh Agabi to find a field where little had been measured. He chose neurons - then built a company around giving machines a biological sense of smell.
Koniku is a California synthetic-biology company that builds 'wetware' - devices that fuse living, engineered neurons with silicon to smell the world. Its Konikore sensor programs biological receptors to detect odors, explosives, chemical vapors and disease biomarkers at sensitivities that rival a dog's nose, aiming to give machines a sense of smell for airport security, healthcare and industrial monitoring.