Kenso Soai Wins 2026 Chemistry Nobel for Single-Mirror-Image Reaction

Kenso Soai and Henri Kagan won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, announced October 7, 2026 by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The prize cited nonlinear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis. Soai, 76, of Tokyo University of Science, designed the first chemical reaction that formed only one of two possible molecular mirror images.