Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai win Nobel Prize in chemistry
French scientist Henri B. Kagan and Japanese chemist Kenso Soai have won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced on Wednesday.
“Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai have provided a solution to a chemical mystery that is over a century old: how homochirality can emerge spontaneously,” Heiner Linke, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said in a news release.
“The chemical reactions they have developed are spectacular.”
Kagan is affiliated with Université Paris-Sud in Orsay, France, while 95-year-old Soai is associated with the Tokyo University of Science.
The chemistry prize is part of a week of Nobel announcements in Stockholm.
The medicine prize was awarded on Monday to three scientists whose work led to a light-based tool for studying how the brain works, while Tuesday’s physics prize recognised research into a rare group of neutrinos.
The Nobel Prize in Literature will be announced on Thursday, followed by the Peace Prize on Friday and the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences on Monday.
The prize money this year is 12 million Swedish kronor (about $1.2 million), to be shared where there are multiple laureates.