A international conference on the subject of "Sensors and Sensing in Biology and Engineering" to be jointly supported by NSF, ONR and AFOSR, is organized and will be held in Calabria Italy in October, 2008. <br/><br/>The proposed conference is to provide a needed forum for natural and physical-chemical scientists, mathematicians and engineers to share in depth knowledge as well as new concepts and theories, discoveries, and research technologies related to both biological and artificial sensors and sensing. A sub set (10 -15) of the written will be published by Springer-Verlag. The conference will examine the current knowledge base of sensors and sensing in biology and engineering with a view to defining the "state-of-the-art" and identifying new, exciting and profitable areas of activity; help establish lasting relationships among subsets of the conference attendees ; and provide badly needed feedback to the scientific community and the funding agencies, especially NSF, concerning what are the main impediments and the grand challenges impacting advances in the fundamental understanding and practical applications of bio-inspired sensors and sensing.