The design of an artificial nose requires two types of contributions: transducers, to convert chemical information carried by the odorant molecules into an electric signal, and information from the biological olfactory system on how chemical structures are associated to odours. The current availability of different types of gas sensors, fulfilling the required properties, and the increasing information on the biochemistry of olfactory transduction make such project feasible. Transducers based on conducting polymers are currently being employed in artificial devices for gas discrimination and recognition, currently applied to food headspace analysis, environmental monitoring and clinical diagnostic. The use of odorant-binding proteins of the olfactory system in the fabrication of biosensors for odours could in the future improve the performance of electronic noses.