Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2026 awarded to Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai

Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2026 awarded to Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to French chemist Henri B. Kagan and Japanese chemist Kenso Soai for the discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis. Their work explains how a small chiral imbalance in a chemical reaction can be amplified into a near pure single-handed product, a principle used in making pharmaceuticals and other chiral molecules.