This feature article offers a comprehensive account of a decade of research devoted to the combination of the grand sensing principles with synthetic transport systems that act in lipid bilayers. Differential sensing, that is pattern generation and pattern recognition, is exemplified with an artificial nose. The aptamer version of immunosensing is realized with sticky-end polymers of DNA double helices for both signal generation and signal transduction. Biosensing, that is the use of enzymes for signal generation, is exemplified first with an artificial tongue and then expanded to analytes such as cholesterol, phytate or polyphenols. Enjoyable also for the general reader, we hope that this account will inspire supramolecular organic as well as analytical, physical and biological chemists (review).