Nobel laureates solved over 100-year-old chemical puzzle

The duo is awarded the prize for the discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis. Some molecules, such as amino acids, exist in two variants that are mirror images of each other, but in living organisms only one of the mirror images exists.

- They are similar, but not identical. Much like my hands, says Heiner Linke, chairman of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry when the prize is presented.

Why this is so was long a mystery to science, until Kagan and Soai found the answer.

- Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai have given us a solution to an over 100-year-old chemical puzzle: how homochirality can arise spontaneously. The chemical reactions they have developed are spectacular, says Heiner Linke in a press release.

In the mid-1980s, Henri Kagan discovered a new way to manipulate chemical reactions. This made it possible to create a larger excess of the one mirror image than had previously been assumed to be possible, writes the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in a press release.

About ten years later, the next step was taken by Kenso Soai when he designed the first ever chemical reaction that had the potential to be homochiral. That is, where only one of the two possible mirror images occurs.

Thanks to Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai, we now know how homochirality can arise. Their discoveries have been crucial for chemists designing reactions to make drugs.

The prize sum of 12 million Swedish kronor is divided equally between the prize winners.