2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded to Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai for their work in ‘mirror’ chemistry
NEWS | 08 October 2026
The 2026 Nobel Prize for Chemistry has been awarded to Henri Kagan of Paris-Sud University and Kenso Soai of the Tokyo University of Science for their work exploring the fundamental geometry of molecules. The pair are known for pioneering research into autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis. Molecules that are chiral are those whose mirror images cannot be superimposed on each other. Normally when chemists produce chiral molecules in the lab, they get equal amounts of both forms. Kagan and Soai figured out, for the first time, a way to create just one of those mirror images. On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. On Wednesday, after Soai found out that he had won the prize, he told the Nobel Committee for Chemistry that he had been out shopping when he was notified that he had won and that this was “one of the most exciting days in my life. I’m very glad to share the prize with Professor Henri Kagan.” He noted that chirality in amino acids is essential to the formation of DNA, and therefore to life as we know it, and that many mysteries remain as to how it first emerged. “This is not the final answer,” Soai said. “This field should be [moved] forward ... more and more to understand life.” Chirality is fundamental to understanding organic chemistry. Amino acids and sugars are chiral, for example, in that these molecules all share the same three-dimensional spatial orientation, a property also known as handedness. Imagine your right and left hands—they are mirror images of each other, and you cannot superimpose one on the other. Most people favor one or the other hand—homochirality is similar. Almost all amino acids are left-handed; sugars are generally right-handed. Rigoberto Hernandez, president of the American Chemical Society, compares the chirality of molecules to a human couple dancing. “You need to have just the right fit and relative orientation,” he says. “It turns out that molecules, when they have one orientation, keep that orientation for a long time. That matters in how they pair up and align” and lead to complex chemical reactions. Peter Somfai, a member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said after the announcement that, “taken together, the groundbreaking discoveries by Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai have reshaped our understanding of molecular chirality, how it is created, amplified and transmitted.” Kagan and Soai showed that it is possible to increase the ratio of one mirror image compared with the other. They also showed that it is possible to create one of the mirror images “from nothing,” as Somfai put it, using autocatalysis: in this chemical process, one product of the reaction acts as its catalyst, speeding up the reaction. The discovery could be the key to understanding how life first arose on Earth, Somfai said. While producing molecules is relatively easy, problems arise when trying to produce molecules with specific chirality, Hernandez says. Statistically, half the molecules would be of one handedness, and the remainder would be of the other. Kagan was able to demonstrate that using specific catalysts could lead to producing one form of handedness more than the other, while Soai advanced the field by using chirals as their own catalyst to produce more of themselves. “Once you have done the mathematics, you understand the theory. And once you’ve demonstrated it’s possible, then you can start to replicate it in many more systems, and then you can do that with intentionality, so that you have a product, a medicine, a material that is intentionally more than the other,” Hernandez says. The work has also been integral to the pharmaceutical industry and the development of novel molecules. Somfai noted that it was “difficult to say that this drug or that drug was developed using this. I would say all of them, because we use this as a tool.” The fact that this year’s award was given to such fundamental research should serve as a reminder about how essential that kind of work is for paving the way for advances that are felt in every day life, Hernandez says. “This this is a reminder that the world is better today because of fundamental and basic science advances that were made 10, 20, 50, years ago,” he says. “It means that we need to make investments today in science to ensure that we have those solutions tomorrow, whether it’s 10 or 20 or 30 years from now.” The Nobel Prize for Chemistry has been awarded 118 times to 202 laureates in total since its inception in 1901. That year the winner was Dutch physical chemist Jacobus Henricus van ’t Hoff, who was awarded for his work uncovering how chemicals interact with one another in solutions. Among the prize’s most famous laureates is Marie Curie, who was the first woman to receive the award and the first person to receive two Nobel Prizes. Curie's initial Nobel was for physics, but her second, awarded in 1911, was for chemistry and recognized her work on polonium and the isolation of pure radium. Another notable dual winner was Frederick Sanger, who won in 1958 for sequencing the amino acids that make up insulin and again in 1980 for developing a method to sequence strands of DNA. Other awards have recognized research into nanoparticles called quantum dots, which can produce a stunning array of colors, the development of CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technology and a way to make molecular sponges that may be used in everything from cancer treatments to cleaning wastewater. Editor’s Note (10/7/26): This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
Author: Claire Cameron. Adam Kovac.
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