Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2026,

[Astronuc]

Henri B. Kagan, Université Paris-Sud, France
Kenso Soai, Tokyo University of Science, Japan

“for the discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis”

They made chemistry choose a mirror image​

Some molecules, such as amino acids, exist as two variants that are each other’s mirror image. However, living organisms only contain one of these mirror images. How chemical asymmetry such as this could have emerged was long a mystery to chemists. Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai are awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2026 for discovering a solution to this puzzle.

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2026/press-release/

Life’s chemistry is what chemists call homochiral, after the Greek words for “same” and “hand”. Like hands, all amino acids exist as two mirrored variants, but only one of them is found in the proteins in your cells. The other is rarely found in nature.

For a long time, chemists wondered how homochirality can emerge. When they began to experiment with chemical reactions that can form two mirrored molecules, they always obtained equal proportions of both in their test tubes. However, chemists strived to produce only one of these mirror images, because in the development of molecules that will interact with living beings – such as in pharmaceuticals – only one mirror image will have the desired effect.

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2026 recognises discoveries that have enabled chemists to drive chemical reactions that lead to homochirality.

“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,” says Heiner Linke, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry.

 

[BillTre]

This came as a surprise to me. Not something I have kept an eye out for.

 

[Mayhem]

This came as a surprise to me. Not something I have kept an eye out for.

It is not surprising to me! Enantioselectivity is one of the big bulls of synthetic chemistry.

 

[Astronuc]

I've known about right vs left (dextro vs levo) molecules since high school.

There was some speculation that l-glucose might be an alternative to d-glucose in combatting obesity. l-glucose is metabolized differently than d-glucose, or at least that was thinking about 50+ years ago.

https://unacademy.com/content/jee/study-material/chemistry/different-structural-forms-of-glucose/

Stereoisomers are isomers that differ in spatial arrangement of atoms, rather than order of atomic connectivity. One of their most interesting type of isomer is the mirror-image stereoisomers, a non-superimposable set of two molecules that are mirror image of one another. The existence of these molecules are determined by concept known as chirality.

https://chem.libretexts.org/Bookshe...mistry)/Chirality/Chirality_and_Stereoisomers

Biological Significance​

D-Glucose​

D-glucose (also known as dextrose) is the most biologically active and widely used monosaccharide. It serves as the primary energy source in most organisms, including humans, and is central to cellular respiration.

L-Glucose​

L-glucose has the same chemical formula and sweetness as D-glucose but is not recognized by the enzymes involved in glycolysis. It cannot be metabolized by most living organisms, making it a potential low-calorie sweetener, though its cost limits widespread use.

https://www.echemi.com/cms/967892.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L-Glucose

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chirality_(chemistry)

 

[Borek]

This is basically kind of a process I remember being suggested even before their works (I learned about it in the early eighties, and I strongly doubt it was a fresh one then). The idea is that of a self-enforcing change: imagine you have a bag of black and white marbles. You draw three at random. If they are identical - return them. If one is different from two others: change its color and return three identical marbles to the bag. This is an unstable equilibrium - initially nothing happens, but at some point for purely statistical reasons one color starts to dominate and then it is kind of a runaway reaction, everything changes quickly either to black, or white.

In a way Kenso Sai work implements this.