In a landmark announcement, the Nobel Committee awarded the 2026 Prize in Chemistry to French chemist Henri B. Kagan and Japan’s Kenso Soai for elucidating the long‑standing mystery of why living organisms use only one hand‑selected form of chiral molecules.
Molecules that build life—such as the amino acids of proteins—are chiral, meaning they exist in two mirror‑image forms. Life, however, relies almost exclusively on one of those forms. Until now, scientists had no clear idea why this selective bias arose.
Kagan’s and Soai’s research, published across several high‑profile studies, demonstrates how a simple autocatalytic chemical reaction can generate an overwhelming excess of a single enantiomer. The breakthrough not only explains the prevalence of left‑handed amino acids in biology but also offers a new framework for mastering molecular handedness in the lab.
The implications of this work are vast: pharmaceutical companies can design drugs that interact more predictably with the body’s chiral machinery, and synthetic biologists can now engineer complex systems that mimic nature’s one‑handed preference.
Image: Nobel Committee photo of the two laureates
