Two French and Japanese chemists win 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Quick Look
- The 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry will be awarded to French scientist Henri B.
- Kagan and Japanese scientist Kenzo Kappa in recognition of their outstanding contributions in deciphering the spontaneous production mechanism of "homochirality".
- This discovery is of decisive significance for the design of drug manufacturing reactions.
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Why It Matters
Homochirality is when an organism selects only one of the mirror image variants when making a molecule. This phenomenon has puzzled the chemical community for more than a century.
(Deutsche Welle Chinese website) The 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been announced. French scientist Henri B. Kagan and Japanese scientist Kenzo Kappa jointly received the award. Heiner Linke, chairman of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said in a press release that "Kagan and Kenzo have solved a problem that has puzzled the chemical community for more than a century: how homochirality arises spontaneously." "This is of decisive significance for chemists designing reactions to make drugs."
If a chemical molecule cannot coincide with its mirror image through operations such as rotation and translation, then the molecule is chiral. If they could overlap, there would be no chirality. Scientists discovered in the 1840s and 1850s that certain molecules (such as amino acids) exist in two variants that are mirror images of each other, but organisms only choose one of the mirror-image molecules. Scientists therefore call the chemical properties of life "homochirality."
The 95-year-old Kagan was born in Boulogne-Billancourt, France, in 1930. He received a doctorate from the Collège de France in 1960 and is currently an honorary professor at the University of Paris 11, France. Kenzo Kipwa was born in Hiroshima, Japan in 1950. He received his PhD from the University of Tokyo in 1979 and is currently an honorary professor at the Tokyo University of Science and Technology, Japan.
This year's Nobel Prize selection announcement series began on Monday, with the Physiology or Medicine Prize being announced first, and the Physics Prize winner announced on Tuesday. After the results of the Chemistry Prize are announced on Wednesday, the Literature Prize will be announced on Thursday. Friday is the day the Peace Prize winner is announced, and finally the Nobel Prize in Economics will be announced next Monday.
This year’s prize is 12 million Swedish krona, equivalent to approximately US$1.2 million, and the amount is the same regardless of whether the winner is an individual, group or organization.
Open Questions
- How exactly does this discovery apply to large-scale drug production?
