Cell engineering techniques improve pharmacology of cellular therapeutics

Despite the rapid growth of clinical trials for cellular therapy worldwide, their clinical success is still afflicted with formidable challenges demanding conceptual and technological overhaul. Pharmacology, which is conventionally divided into pharmacokinetics (PK) and pharmacodynamics (PD) in drug discovery have emerged as a prominent research direction to elucidate the cell fate and ensure the efficacy and safety of the therapeutic cells. Herein, we concisely present the dilemmas of cellular therapies, the concept of cell pharmacology, and the advances in cell engineering that leverage the cell formulation technologies to modulate cellular PK/PD for development of more cogent and versatile cell-based therapies.