Starkl et al. show that mast cells have a key role in the metabolic network that underlies postoperative pain and demonstrate that this can be therapeutically targeted in mouse models.

Francesca Di Rosa works on T cells and is committed to science outreach. Together with Adrian Hayday, she recently conceptualized and delivered the exhibit ‘Vaccination, a time machine’ at the Royal Society Summer Exhibition in London. Here, she shares her thoughts on how to communicate a core scientific content with artistic and historical input, according to her ‘5C’ formula.

Anne Spurkland is a professor of medicine, and her research interests include T cell activation and autoimmunity. She is also an avid baker of cakes that everyone can have and eat too, irrespective of allergies and dietary preferences. This latter passion propelled her into national fame as one of Norway’s most visible experts on immunity and viruses during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sex-specific differences in immunity are determined by genetics and by hormones. This Comment discusses first insights into the consequences of long-term sex-hormone supplementation on immunity in transgender individuals.

In this Tools of the Trade article, Mayar Allam and Ahmet Coskun describe how they combined spatial metabolomics and proteomics profiling — in a framework they call scSpaMet — to explore, at the single-cell level, how metabolic profiles vary by location and in disease.

Kloosterman, Erbani et al. describe a lipid-mediated, metabolic crosstalk between tumour-associated macrophages and glioblastoma cells that supports tumour growth.