The 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded jointly to Henri B Kagan and Kenso Soai by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which made the announcement on Wednesday (local time). The prize honours “the discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis.” In its official release, the Nobel Prize describes life’s chemistry as homochiral, a term built from the Greek words for “same” and “hand.” Amino acids occur as two mirrored forms, like a pair of hands, but only one of them appears in the proteins in your cells, and the other is seldom 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.
What did the two chemists discover?
“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, the release cited him as saying. The release noted that Henri Kagan took the first decisive step in 1986, when he discovered a new way of manipulating chemical reactions. This allowed him to create a greater excess of one of the mirror images than had previously been thought possible.
Kenso Soai took the next step. In 1995, a key publication describes how he designed the first ever chemical reaction that had the potential to be homochiral. In 2003, he finally succeeded. He presented a reaction in which only one of the two possible mirror images was formed. Other than life itself, no one had previously achieved this feat. Thanks to Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai, we now know how homochirality can emerge. Their discoveries have been decisive for chemists who design reactions for the manufacture of pharmaceuticals, the release emphasised.
Henri B. Kagan was born in1930 in Boulogne-Billancourt, France and did his PhD in 1960 at Collège de France, France and is the Professor Emeritus at the then Université Paris-Sud, France. Meanwhile, Kenso Soai was born in 1950 in Hiroshima, Japan and has a PhD in 1979 from the University of Tokyo, Japan. He is the Professor Emeritus at Tokyo University of Science, Japan. The prize carries an award of 12 million Swedish kronor, which will be shared equally among the three laureates.
Nobel Prize for Physics
Earlier on Tuesday, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 2026 to Francis Halzen “for decisive contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin.” According to an official press release, Francis Halzen realised that ice at the South Pole could be used to track particles known as neutrinos. His vision and scientific leadership have been fundamental to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory – a cubic kilometre of ice that is equipped with light sensors. Using IceCube, researchers can capture neutrinos from extremely energy-rich processes in the distant universe.
Neutrinos are everywhere, but they do not make themselves known. They pass all the way through the Earth and through our bodies without us noticing. Very rarely, a single neutrino will interact with an atomic nucleus, which makes it possible for someone with the right equipment to discover them. The release further stated that scientists have long known that the cosmos contains natural particle accelerators, which fire out particles with energies up to a million times more than can be achieved in laboratories on Earth. Much about these sources is mysterious: what are they, where are they, and what are the main processes inside them?
Neutrinos with extremely high energies are created in the same environments as other types of particles. However, unlike other particles, neutrinos reach us without changing direction or losing energy. This means they can provide information that is not available in any other way. Francis Halzen first presented his vision for capturing neutrinos at the South Pole in 1988. When a neutrino collides with an atomic nucleus, it produces a flash of light that can be tracked by sensors in the clear glacial ice. The South Pole’s ice has many advantages, as it is free from various types of interference and the area is geologically stable, with no earthquakes. Halzen and his idea soon gained the support of other researchers and, just a few years later, preliminary testing was conducted on sensors in ice.
With inputs from ANI
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