Nobel prize in chemistry awarded for work on mirror-image molecules

The Nobel prize in chemistry 2026 has been awarded to two scientists for discoveries that showed how chemical reactions can produce one of two mirror image forms of a molecule. Henri B Kagan at Paris-Sud University in France and Kensō Soai at Tokyo University of Science in Japan have been awarded the prize “for the discovery of nonlinear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis”. The Nobel assembly at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, announced the winners on Wednesday.

They will each receive an equal share of a prize of 12m Swedish kronor (about £900,000).