Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai win the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry: who they are

Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for the discovery of nonlinear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis". In practice, some molecules, such as amino acids, exist in two variants that are mirror images of each other. However, living organisms contain only one of these two mirrored forms. How a chemical asymmetry of this type could have arisen has long remained a mystery to chemists. But the studies of Kagan and Soai found a solution to this puzzle.

Specifically, the Frenchman Henri Kagan discovered a new method for manipulating chemical reactions, allowing one to obtain a greater excess of one of the two mirror images than previously thought possible. His discovery proved revolutionary for chemists developing reactions for the production of pharmaceuticals, flavors, fragrances and new materials. Kenso Soai, however, created the first chemical reaction capable of generating only one of the two potential mirror images. Except for life itself, no one had ever accomplished such a feat. The Soai reaction is one of the most spectacular chemical experiments ever carried out.

Henri Kagan was born on December 15, 1930, in Boulogne-Billancourt, France. He is known as a pioneer in the field of asymmetric catalysis. His discoveries had a significant impact on the pharmaceutical industry. He studied at the Sorbonne in Paris before earning his doctorate at the Collège de France in 1960. After a career spanning nearly forty years at the Université Paris-Sud in Orsay, France, he now serves as professor emeritus.

Kenso Soai was born in 1950, in Hiroshima, Japan. He graduated from the University of Tokyo and received his PhD in 1979. He was a fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), and then moved to the United States as a research associate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 1981 he was appointed professor at the Tokyo University of Science, where he set up his own research group. He was promoted to associate professor in 1986 and to full professor in 1991.