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Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai Win 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
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News18•07-10-2026, 15:37
Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai Win 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
- •Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai have been awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for breakthroughs in asymmetric organic synthesis.
- •The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences honored their discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis, solving a century-old mystery regarding homochirality.
- •Their research explains how living organisms predominantly use only one mirror-image form of chiral molecules like amino acids.
- •Kagan achieved a major breakthrough in 1986 by showing how to manipulate reactions to favor one mirror-image molecule over the other.
- •Soai advanced the field in 1995 and 2003 by utilizing autocatalysis to amplify small molecular imbalances and produce purely homochiral reactions.
Key Questions Answered
The 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai for their discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis.
In 1986, Henri Kagan discovered a new way of manipulating chemical reactions, demonstrating that it was possible to create a much greater excess of one mirror-image form than scientists previously thought possible.
Kenso Soai published a key study in 1995 describing a reaction involving autocatalysis, and by 2003 he successfully demonstrated a reaction producing only one mirror-image form, amplifying a small initial advantage.
