Kenso Soai shares the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for a reaction that copies itself
The Tokyo University of Science chemist is honoured with France's Henri Kagan for work on the 'handedness' of molecules.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Kenso Soai, 76, of the Tokyo University of Science, and Henri Kagan, 95, of Université Paris-Saclay, for discoveries about nonlinear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis.12
Left hand, right hand
Many molecules come in two mirror-image forms, like a pair of hands. Ordinary reactions make equal amounts of both, yet the amino acids and sugars of living things use only one. In 1995 Soai found a reaction in which the product acts as a catalyst for making more of itself. Starting from a tiny excess of one form, the reaction multiplies it until that form dominates. Kagan had shown in 1986 how one form could be favoured.2
The work offers clues to how life's preference for one form might have arisen, and it underpins methods for making medicines, where one form can heal and the other harm.2
Soai, born in Hiroshima Prefecture in 1950, called it “the most exciting day of my life”. It is the second year in a row that a Japanese scientist has won the chemistry prize. The prizes will be presented in Stockholm on 10 December.23
Transfers 乗換
Where these facts come from. Numbers in the text lead here.
- 1Nikkeiノーベル化学賞に硤合憲三氏 不斉自己触媒反応、生命起源の研究寄与
- 2Jiji Pressそあい憲三・名誉教授らにノーベル賞 不斉自己触媒反応の発見
- 3Tokyo University of ScienceNobel Prize in Chemistry 2026
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