Surface-engineered yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) cells were magnetically modified using water based magnetic nanoparticles to prepare a new type of magnetically responsive adsorbent. Infrared spectroscopy analysis revealed that magnetically modified cells remained the functional groups of engineered yeast and magnetic materials. The kinetic and adsorption isotherm law and factors influencing adsorption (such as time, temperature and pH) were analyzed. The results showed that adsorption equilibrium was achieved within 18 min. The optimal condition for the Ag⁺ adsorption was 20~30℃, pH 7.0. The pseudo-first-order kinetic model and Langmuir model fitted the adsorption data well. The results of multi-metal competitive adsorption indicated that magnetically modified cells still showed adsorption selectivity for Ag⁺ than other heavy metal ions. The adsorption amount of Ag⁺ was 10.6 times that of Ni²⁺, 9.0 times that of Zn²⁺, 7.5 times that of Co²⁺, 3.0 times that of Cu²⁺.