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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Science
Linda Geddes

Nobel prize in chemistry awarded for work on mirror-image molecules

A screen shows Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai during the Nobel Prize in Chemistry announcement
Members of the Nobel committee for chemistry announce the aware recipients Kenso Soai and Henri B Kagan Photograph: Xinhua/Shutterstock

The Nobel prize in chemistry 2026 has been awarded to two scientists for discoveries that showed how chemical reactions can produce an overwhelming excess of one of two mirror image forms of a molecule.

Henri B Kagan at Paris-Sud University in France and Kensō Soai at Tokyo University of Science in Japan have been awarded the prize “for the discovery of nonlinear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis”.

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