Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2026 goes to Kagan and Soai for work on 'molecular asymmetry'

France's Henri B. Kagan and Japan's Kenso Soai have won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry “for the discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis,” according to the Nobel Committee. They have discovered how homochirality can surface spontaneously. A few molecules, including amino acids, exist as two mirror-image variants; however, organisms consist of only one.

For several years, chemists struggled to understand and discover how this asymmetry could arise. In 1986, Kagan made a breakthrough after discovering a way to manipulate reactions to produce an excess of one mirror image. Soai came up with a design for a reaction having the potential to become homochiral in 1995 and, in 2003, achieved a reaction that formed only one mirror image. Their discoveries have been conclusive for pharmaceutical manufacturing.

Metal-organic frameworks

Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar M. Yaghi jointly won the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for the development of metal-organic frameworks." These frameworks, known as MOFs, are ultra-porous crystalline structures that link metal ions with organic molecules. The breakthrough lets scientists trap and manipulate molecules, underpinning technologies such as carbon capture, green hydrogen storage, and harvesting drinking water from desert air.

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is one of the prizes established under the will of Swedish inventor and industrialist Alfred Nobel, who made his fortune through inventions including dynamite. He specified that the prizes should go to those who had conferred the "greatest benefit to humankind" in five fields: physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace.

Chemistry was included because of the central role it played in Nobel's own scientific and industrial work. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences chooses the chemistry laureates each year. The prize was first awarded in 1901, when Dutch chemist Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff became its inaugural recipient for his work on chemical dynamics and osmotic pressure.