Nobel Prize in Chemistry Awarded

The winners of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry have been announced in Stockholm. In 2026, the prestigious award went to French scientist Henri Kagan and Japanese scientist Kenso Soai “for the discovery of nonlinear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis.”

According to the Nobel Committee’s website, the scientists helped answer the question of how chemical asymmetry emerged in living nature. For a long time, it was believed that ordinary chemical reactions could not produce a predominance of one isomer over another, but the laureates’ research challenged this view.

Their discovery also allows chemists to direct the synthesis process toward the desired result, obtaining only the useful form of a molecule while avoiding the formation of dangerous “mirror” variants. This is especially important for pharmaceutical production.