Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai win 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

The two scientists were honored for their work on how molecules can mirror each other, a field known as asymmetry.

The 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai. They were chosen for their groundbreaking work on how chemicals act like mirror images of each other. Everything in nature is made of tiny building blocks called molecules. Sometimes, these molecules come in two versions that are mirror images of one another—much like your left and your right hand. They look almost the same, but you cannot perfectly overlap them. This concept is called asymmetry. In the world of science, this is a very big deal. If you make the wrong version of a molecule, it can change ho…