Magnetic carbon nanotubes camouflaged with cell membrane as a drug discovery platform for selective extraction of bioactive compounds from natural products

•A novel cell membrane biomimetic CNTs nanosystem was first established.•The resultant material had a right-side-out membrane and desired magnetic property.•This successful application of material showed significant advantages in drug discovery.•The cell membrane biomimetic modification could be widely used to improve the performance of CNTs in various applications.