Nobel chemistry prize goes to pair who solved mystery of 'mirror image' molecules

Scientists Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai won ​the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for solving a long-standing riddle of asymmetric "mirror image" molecules, a discovery hugely important for pharmaceutical manufacturing, the award-giving body said ‌on Wednesday.

Soai, 76, is Japanese, and Kagan, 95, is French, and their work built on a discovery by the 19th century French chemist Louis Pasteur, Reuters reported.

"This is the most exciting day in my life, I am very glad to share this prize with professor Henri Kagan," Reuters quoted Soai as saying, speaking by phone to the Nobel Prize press conference, adding he had been out shopping when receiving the news.

The Nobel committee was still trying to ​contact Kagan to inform him of the award.

The chemistry Nobel, always the third prize to be awarded during Nobel week, followed those for medicine and physics announced on Monday and ​Tuesday.

Many of the molecules essential to life exist in two forms that are mirror images of each other, like left and ⁠right hands. Yet living organisms almost exclusively use only one version, a phenomenon known as "homochirality" – from the Greek word for hand – that has puzzled chemists for more than a century.

This ​year's prize was awarded for discoveries that showed how chemical reactions can be driven to favour a single molecular mirror image, work that has been key for chemists who design reactions for ​the manufacture of pharmaceuticals.

"The left-handed version of the drug can have one effect, and the right-handed version can have another effect, and then we need methods for selectively preparing them," Peter Somfai, a member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said.

"In developing such methods the findings of this year's laureates are important. They provided powerful tools for that," he said.