New Delhi, October 2026 : The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Wednesday awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to French chemist Henri B. Kagan and Japanese chemist Kenso Soai for their pioneering discoveries of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis.
The two scientists were honoured for work that helped resolve a longstanding mystery in chemistry: how molecular asymmetry, or homochirality, could emerge spontaneously in nature. Their discoveries demonstrated how chemical reactions can be directed to produce predominantly, and in some cases exclusively, one of two mirror-image forms of a molecule.
The Nobel laureates will share a prize of 12 million Swedish kronor equally.
Many molecules, including amino acids, exist in two mirror-image forms known as enantiomers. Although these forms have similar chemical properties, living organisms overwhelmingly use only one of them. Scientists have therefore long sought to understand how such molecular selectivity emerged naturally.
According to the Nobel Committee, conventional chemical synthesis traditionally produced equal quantities of both mirror-image molecules. The work of Kagan and Soai showed that this balance could be disrupted through specific chemical reactions, allowing one molecular form to dominate.
“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,” said Heiner Linke, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry.
Kagan made a major breakthrough in 1986 when he developed a method for influencing chemical reactions in asymmetric organic synthesis. His work demonstrated that it was possible to obtain a substantially higher proportion of one molecular mirror image than previously believed.
Soai subsequently built on this foundation. In 1995, he demonstrated a pioneering chemical reaction with the potential to become homochiral. His research provided important evidence that chemical reactions could amplify small molecular asymmetries through autocatalysis.
In 2003, Soai achieved another landmark result by demonstrating a reaction that produced only one of the two possible mirror-image forms. The achievement was significant because such highly selective molecular production had previously been observed primarily in biological systems.
The Academy said the discoveries have had a major influence on modern chemistry, particularly in pharmaceutical research and manufacturing. The ability to produce the correct molecular mirror image can be crucial because different enantiomers of a compound can interact differently with biological systems and may have different therapeutic effects.
Kagan, born in 1930 in Boulogne-Billancourt, France, earned his PhD from the Collège de France in 1960. He is Professor Emeritus at the former Université Paris-Sud.
Soai was born in 1950 in Hiroshima, Japan. He received his PhD from the University of Tokyo in 1979 and is Professor Emeritus at Tokyo University of Science.
Their work has helped deepen understanding of how molecular handedness can arise and be amplified through chemical processes, offering insights into one of the fundamental questions surrounding the origins and development of molecular asymmetry in nature.
