Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai Win Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 'Homochirality Research'

"An Answer to the Chemical Mystery of Homochirality"

This year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to French chemist Henri Kagan, 95, and Japanese chemist Kenso Soai, 76, for their discovery of nonlinear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis.

Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai, selected as the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry laureates. Nobel Committee.

The Nobel Committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced on the 7th (local time) that it had decided to award the prize to "Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai for their discovery of nonlinear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis."

Heiner Linke, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said the two laureates had "provided an answer to a chemical mystery that has persisted for more than 100 years: how homochirality—the phenomenon in which the molecules that make up living organisms have only one handedness—can emerge spontaneously."

Henri Kagan was born in France in 1930 and earned his doctorate from the Collège de France. He is currently a professor at Paris-Sud University in France. Kenso Soai was born in Hiroshima, Japan, in 1950 and is a professor at Tokyo University of Science in Japan.

The total prize money for this year's Chemistry Prize is 12 million Swedish kronor (approximately 1.6 billion won). The announcements of the 2026 Nobel Prize laureates are set to continue with the Literature Prize on October 8, the Peace Prize on October 9, and the Economics Prize on October 12.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.