Listen to this articleDear 2 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated using AI-based technology. Pronunciation errors may occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve results. Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry on Wednesday for their discovery of nonlinear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis. “Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai have provided a solution to a chemical mystery that is more than a century old: how homochirality can arise spontaneously,” Heiner Linke, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said in a press release. “The chemical reactions they have developed are spectacular.” The duo’s discoveries “have been instrumental for chemists designing reactions for the manufacture of pharmaceuticals,” Linke added. Kagan, 95, born in France, is affiliated with Paris-Saclay University in Orsay, France, and Soai, born in Japan in 1950, conducts research at the Tokyo University of Sciences. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced the winners in Stockholm. They will share a prize totaling 12 million Swedish crowns (1.7 million Canadian dollars). Many of the molecules essential for life exist in two forms that are mirror images of each other, like left and right hands. However, living organisms almost exclusively use a single version, a phenomenon known as “homochirality” (from the Greek word for hand) that has baffled chemists for more than a century. Kagan and Soai found ways to make chemistry choose a side, designing and manipulating reactions to produce the desired mirror image, work that has been key for chemists designing reactions for the manufacture of pharmaceuticals. “I am very excited to receive such good news,” Soai said. the committee and journalists by telephone. “Of course, this is one of the most exciting days of my life.” He said he was shopping near his home when he was contacted by the Nobel committee. The Nobel Prize in Literature will be announced on Thursday and the Peace Prize on Friday. The economics prize will be announced on October 12. The Nobel Prizes will be awarded to the laureates on December 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death. The Swedish chemist and businessman dictated in his will that most of his assets should be used to finance “awards to those who, during the previous year, have contributed the greatest benefit to humanity.”
