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Nobel Prize in chemistry awarded to Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai

The award recognizes discoveries that explain homochirality and guide drug design, with the laureates sharing 12 million Swedish kronor.

  • On Wednesday, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai for discovering non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis.
  • Nobel Committee chair Heiner Linke explained homochirality—where life uses only one version of mirror-image molecules—as a fundamental mystery that had puzzled chemists for over a century.
  • Kagan, 95, and 76-year-old Soai developed methods to drive reactions toward specific mirror-image molecules, with Soai creating the 'Soai reaction' to generate an excess of one form—a feat the committee called 'spectacular.'
  • Pharmaceutical manufacturers now rely on these discoveries to selectively prepare specific mirror-image compounds, ensuring therapeutic efficacy while avoiding harmful side effects from incorrect molecular variants.
  • The laureates share a 12 million Swedish kronor prize. The 2026 Nobel cycle continues with the literature laureate announcement on Thursday and the peace prize on Friday.
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Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai are honored with the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for solving a hundred-year-old puzzle.

·Berlin, Germany
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la Nacion broke the news in Vicente López, Argentina on Tuesday, October 6, 2026.
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