France’s Henri Kagan and Japan’s Kenso Soai Share 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

French scientist Henri Kagan and Japanese scientist Kenso Soai were awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry on Wednesday for their research into asymmetric catalysis.

The field focuses on chemical reactions that favour the formation of one mirror-image version of a molecule over the other. Although these molecular forms share the same composition, they can behave differently in biological systems.

That distinction is important in areas such as pharmaceutical chemistry, where a molecule’s three-dimensional structure can influence its effects. Asymmetric catalysis helps chemists control which form a reaction produces.

The shared prize recognises Kagan and Soai’s research in this specialised area of chemistry, which provides tools for making molecules with greater precision.