Chemistry Nobel goes to Kagan and Soai for mirror-image molecule work
7 October 2026
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2026 to Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai.
The citation is "for the discovery of nonlinear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis".
Many molecules of life exist in two mirror-image forms, like a left and a right hand. Living organisms use almost only one of them, a puzzle known as homochirality.
Kagan and Soai showed how a chemical reaction can be driven to favour one mirror image over the other.
The work matters for making medicines, because the two mirror forms of a drug can act differently in the body.
Nobel Committee chair Heiner Linke called it a solution to a chemical mystery more than a century old.
Kagan is French and Soai is Japanese. The prize of 12 million Swedish kronor is shared equally.
In plain words
Homochirality Homochirality — The fact that living things use almost exclusively one of the two mirror-image forms of a molecule.
Autocatalysis Autocatalysis — A reaction in which a product of the reaction itself speeds up that same reaction.