Signals released by immune cells during a bout of inflammatory bowel disease interfere with intestinal cells' ability to regenerate. Yet people with inflammatory bowel diseases have a higher risk of developing colon cancer: a hyper-activation of growth in those same intestinal cells. Researchers have identified a feedback loop involving a growth-regulating circuit in intestinal cells, which helps explain these apparently contradictory observations. Interfering with one component of the feedback loop -- a protein called "dickkopf 1" -- may aid in controlling inflammatory bowel diseases.