The 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai "for the discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced in Stockholm on Wednesday.
Solving a century-old mystery
The pair's work addresses one of chemistry's oldest puzzles: homochirality — the phenomenon that living systems use only one of two possible mirror-image forms of a molecule, like left and right hands. Kagan and Soai showed how this one-sidedness can emerge spontaneously through chemistry rather than being unique to living organisms.
"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," Heiner Linke, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said in a statement.
Decades of pioneering work
Kagan, born in 1930 in Boulogne-Billancourt, France, and professor emeritus at Université Paris-Sud, took the first decisive step in the 1980s, developing new methods to control chemical reactions so that they produced far more of one mirror-image form of a molecule than previously thought possible — a breakthrough of particular importance for pharmaceuticals, flavours, fragrances and new materials.
Soai, born in 1950 in Hiroshima, Japan, and professor emeritus at the Tokyo University of Science, went further: in 2003 he created the first chemical reaction that produced only one of the two possible mirror images. "Other than life itself, no one had previously achieved this feat," the Nobel committee said.
Their discoveries have been decisive for chemists designing reactions to manufacture modern pharmaceuticals, the academy noted.
The prize
The two share the 12 million Swedish kronor prize, worth about $1.2 million. The chemistry award follows Monday's medicine prize for optogenetics research and Tuesday's physics prize to Francis Halzen for the IceCube neutrino work. The literature prize is announced Thursday, the peace prize on Friday, and the economics prize next Monday.
Sources: Reuters: Kagan and Soai win 2026 Nobel chemistry prize; CNN: Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry
Solving a century-old mystery
The pair's work addresses one of chemistry's oldest puzzles: homochirality — the phenomenon that living systems use only one of two possible mirror-image forms of a molecule, like left and right hands. Kagan and Soai showed how this one-sidedness can emerge spontaneously through chemistry rather than being unique to living organisms.
"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," Heiner Linke, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said in a statement.
Decades of pioneering work
Kagan, born in 1930 in Boulogne-Billancourt, France, and professor emeritus at Université Paris-Sud, took the first decisive step in the 1980s, developing new methods to control chemical reactions so that they produced far more of one mirror-image form of a molecule than previously thought possible — a breakthrough of particular importance for pharmaceuticals, flavours, fragrances and new materials.
Soai, born in 1950 in Hiroshima, Japan, and professor emeritus at the Tokyo University of Science, went further: in 2003 he created the first chemical reaction that produced only one of the two possible mirror images. "Other than life itself, no one had previously achieved this feat," the Nobel committee said.
Their discoveries have been decisive for chemists designing reactions to manufacture modern pharmaceuticals, the academy noted.
The prize
The two share the 12 million Swedish kronor prize, worth about $1.2 million. The chemistry award follows Monday's medicine prize for optogenetics research and Tuesday's physics prize to Francis Halzen for the IceCube neutrino work. The literature prize is announced Thursday, the peace prize on Friday, and the economics prize next Monday.
Sources: Reuters: Kagan and Soai win 2026 Nobel chemistry prize; CNN: Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry
