- Kagan, Soai won Nobel for solving mirror-image molecule puzzle.
- Their breakthrough significantly impacts pharmaceutical manufacturing and drug safety.
- The work builds on Louis Pasteur’s vital homochirality discoveries.
Scientists Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry on Wednesday for solving a long-standing puzzle involving asymmetric “mirror image” molecules, a breakthrough with major implications for pharmaceutical manufacturing.
Soai, 76, is Japanese, while Kagan, 95, is French. Their work built on the discoveries of 19th-century French chemist Louis Pasteur. Kagan is the third-oldest person to receive a Nobel Prize.
“This is the most exciting day in my life. I am very glad to share this prize with Professor Henri Kagan,” Soai said by phone during the Nobel Prize press conference. He added that he had been out grocery shopping when he received the news.
Soai Calls Nobel ‘Most Exciting Day’ Of His Life
Kagan’s daughter, Veronique Le Deunff, said she was “very happy”, adding that her father’s “creativity and originality” had opened new avenues for research.
French President Emmanuel Macron congratulated the laureates on X, describing the award as an immense honour for France. “A recognition suited to a lifetime of research,” he said.
Kagan’s work had long been regarded as influential in the field. In 2001, the then-French research minister complained to the Nobel Foundation after Kagan was not awarded the prize that year. The Nobel instead went to two American scientists and one Japanese scientist for work in the same field.
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi also congratulated Soai during a phone call. “As a Japanese, I’m very proud of you,” she told him.
‘Right-Handed’ And ‘Left-Handed’ Molecules
Many molecules essential to life exist in two forms that are mirror images of one another, much like a person’s left and right hands. Living organisms, however, almost exclusively use just one of these forms, a phenomenon known as “homochirality”, derived from the Greek word for hand.
This year’s Nobel recognised discoveries showing how chemical reactions can be controlled to favour one molecular mirror image over the other. The work has proved important for chemists developing reactions used in pharmaceutical manufacturing.
“The left-handed version of the drug can have one effect, and the right-handed version can have another effect, and then we need methods for selectively preparing them,” said Peter Somfai, a member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry.
“In developing such methods, the findings of this year’s laureates are important. They provided powerful tools for that,” he added.
Building On Louis Pasteur’s Work
The first major link in the chain came from Pasteur, who died several years before the Nobel Prizes were first awarded in 1901.
Pasteur was studying tartaric acid, which is important in wine production, when he observed that bacteria fermented only one of its two forms, the one naturally found in grapes. The other form did not undergo fermentation.
His work demonstrated that some substances can exist in two forms with different properties, with the difference sometimes having serious consequences for health. The challenge of producing the desired form of a chiral substance remained unresolved until Kagan and Soai developed asymmetric reactions capable of producing an excess of one form.
“This is probably the coolest experiment in organic chemistry,” Somfai said.
The significance of the research is illustrated by the thalidomide scandal in the early 1960s, when thousands of children were affected by birth defects linked to the sedative. Researchers later established that the harmful effects were caused by the drug’s mirror-image form.
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