The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Henri B. Kagan of Université Paris‑Sud, France, and Kenso Soai of Tokyo University of Science, Japan. They were honored “for the discovery of non‑linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis,” a breakthrough that lets chemists produce a single mirror‑image form of a molecule.
This image accompanies the announcement of the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded to Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai for their work on asymmetric catalysis.
Kagan’s pivotal advance came in 1986 when he found a way to manipulate chemical reactions so that they yield a greater excess of one enantiomer than previously attainable. Building on this, Soai reported in 1995 the design of a reaction capable of becoming homochiral, and in 2003 he demonstrated the Soai reaction, which generates almost exclusively one mirror‑image from achiral starting materials through asymmetric autocatalysis.
The achievement is significant for pharmaceutical synthesis, because only one enantiomer of a drug‑like molecule usually possesses the desired biological activity while the other may be inactive or harmful. Notably, the Nobel announcement emphasized that, other than living systems themselves, no prior chemical reaction had succeeded in forming a single enantiomer, underscoring the uniqueness of their method.