Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2026 to Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2026 was awarded to Henri B. Kagan of France and Kenso Soai of Japan. This recognition came for their groundbreaking work in understanding and achieving non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis. The chemistry of life is referred to as homochiral, meaning that all amino acids exist in only one mirrored form, unlike mirror image molecules that are found in equal proportions.

Chemists have long been puzzled by how homochirality, or the emergence of one mirror image, can occur spontaneously. In 1986, Kagan discovered a method to manipulate chemical reactions, yielding a greater excess of one mirror image over the other. Kenso Soai, in 1995, devised the first chemical reaction capable of producing homochiral reactions.

By 2003, Soai successfully developed a reaction that exclusively produced one of the two possible mirror images. Their discoveries have been pivotal for chemists striving to design pharmaceuticals, as they now understand how to steer chemical reactions to produce only one of the mirror images desired in living organisms.