Fig. 1.

Pharmacology of therapeutic cells in vivo can be potentially modulated by various cell engineering techniques. A. Current hurdles confronted by cellular therapeutics after delivery into the human body, which are closely associated with the lung barrier, immune responses, poor cell retention and insufficient cell homing to the target sites. B. The concept of cell formulation and the comparisons of PK and PD between conventional drugs and cellular therapeutics. C. A myriad of cell engineering approaches, including genetic engineering, preconditioning modification, biomaterial encapsulation, surface modification and cell assembly have been established as cell formulation technologies to improve cellular PK/PD by modulating the constituents of cellular products, thus facilitate their therapeutic effects from the prospect of cell viability, retention, homing and interactions. D. Perspectives to further augment the cell function and accelerate clinical translation by taking advantages of quantitative in vivo cell tracking and detection, novel in vitro and in vivo models and high-throughput screening.