Kayla Goforth set her sights on becoming a biologist at the age of five, inspired by a mother who loved animals and a father who was a chemist.
During graduate school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, she became fascinated by sea turtles’ natal homing, and how they use Earth’s magnetic field to return to their birthplace to lay eggs. Her doctoral research sought to “teach” sea turtles to return to specific geographic areas for food using a conditioning assay – turtles were only fed in one specific magnetic field for two months. Using this assay and a second assay that requires turtles to orient in specific magnetic fields, she then provided the first evidence that two different mechanisms of magnetoreception underlie the magnetic map and magnetic compass senses in sea turtles.
“Many animals exploit Earth’s magnetic field for navigation, both as a compass to determine direction and as a map to determine geographic position,” she explained. “This is the last sense for which we don’t understand the mechanism, and the only one that doesn’t have an underlying sensor identified, such as how a nose is used for olfaction or eyes for vision.”
As a postdoctoral researcher at Texas A&M University, she switched from studying sea turtles to research with monarch butterflies, as much more is already known about their neurology. Now in her second year in Christine Merlin’s lab, she is studying the specific genetic mechanisms involved in the butterflies’ ability to use the magnetic field to migrate.
“Chemical magnetic reception is light-dependent and we suspect that complex chemical reactions underlie animals’ magnetic sensing,” Dr. Goforth said. “Magnetoreception is the last great mystery of animal biology. Another fascinating question: do, or did, humans have the same ability?”
A previous postdoc in Dr. Merlin’s lab (Guijun Wan) identified the C-terminal domain of cryptochrome as necessary for sensing magnetic fields. Dr. Goforth is building on that discovery to investigate whether this protein is sufficient or if other proteins are involved. She is investigating ultraviolet opsins, using a “knockout” approach to determine if particular opsins are required for magnetoreception.
“These projects have the potential to reveal key genes and mechanisms governing magnetoreception in monarchs and possibly other animals,” she said.
Dr. Goforth’s goal is to stay in academia and continue her work in the field.
“I love what I do and really want to understand how magnetic sensing works. It’s fun – if challenging at times – to work with animals, troubleshoot experiments and develop creative approaches. I really appreciate The Welch Foundation’s support for this work.”