An immensely valuable asset to the field of synthetic biology would be a means to genetically endow magnetism to living organisms. Biomagnetism is innate to magnetotactic bacteria, mud-dwelling microbes which as geomagnetic sensors biomineralize iron nanocrystals with exceptional properties, the magnetosomes. However, transplantation of magnetosome biosynthesis has remained unachieved for many years, owing to its complexity and lack of knowledge of genetic determinants. In this project, we followed a systematic approach for the genetic magnetization of diverse microorganisms. To this end, the magnetosome biosynthesis pathway was analyzed and its essential gene set was delineated. We studied and engineered the functional expression of magnetosome gene clusters in the native donor Magnetospirillum gryphiswaldense and in a multitude of foreign microorganisms, which could be successfully ‘magnetized’. This was exploited for bioproduction of engineered magnetic nanomaterials with novel and tunable properties, which were utilized for a number of biotechnical and biomedical applications. In future work, this can be further utilized to generate intracellular labels, tracers and actuators for magnetic manipulation and analysis of other cells and organisms.