Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2026: Why two scientists won for making molecules ‘choose’ a mirror image

Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai have won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discoveries explaining how chemical reactions can favour one mirror-image molecule. Their work helped solve a century-old chemistry puzzle and has major relevance for modern drug development.

The 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Henri B. Kagan of Université Paris-Sud in France and Kenso Soai of Tokyo University of Science in Japan for work that helped explain how chemical reactions can favour one mirror-image form of a molecule over another. The Nobel Committee awarded them the prize “for the discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis”.

The problem sounds abstract, but it sits very close to biology and medicine. Many molecules come in two forms that look like mirror images of........

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