The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2026 has been awarded to Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai “for the discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis”.
While some molecules - such as amino acids - exist as two variants that are each other’s mirror image, living organisms only contain one version. How chemical asymmetry such as this – known as homochirality - could have emerged was long a mystery to chemists, but through their research Kagan and Soai discovered a solution to this puzzle, said the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences - awarding them the Nobel Prize to recognise discoveries that have enabled chemists to drive chemical reactions that lead to homochirality.
“Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai have provided a solution to a chemical mystery that is over a century old: how homochirality can emerge spontaneously. The chemical reactions they have developed are spectacular,” says Heiner Linke, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry.
When chemists they began to experiment with chemical reactions that can form two mirrored molecules, they always obtained equal proportions of both. But chemists often want to produce only one of these mirror images, for example for pharmaceuticals where only one version will have the desired effect.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said that Kagan took the first “decisive step” in 1986, when he discovered a new way of manipulating chemical reactions, which allowed him to create a greater excess of one of the mirror images than had previously been thought possible. In 1995 a key publication by Soai took the next step, describes how he designed the first ever chemical reaction that had the potential to be homochiral. In 2003, he finally succeeded. He presented a reaction in which only one of the two possible mirror images was formed.
“Thanks to Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai, we now know how homochirality can emerge. Their discoveries have been decisive for chemists who design reactions for the manufacture of pharmaceuticals,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.
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