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.