Scientists Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai have won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced the award on Wednesday.

The two laureates share 12 million Swedish crowns, about $1.2 million. Their work explores how tiny imbalances between mirror-image molecules can be amplified into near-total purity, a phenomenon with deep implications for making medicines and studying the origins of life.

Soai, a Japanese chemist, discovered the autocatalytic reaction that bears his name in 1995. In the Soai reaction, a chiral product acts as a catalyst for its own formation, multiplying both its quantity and its purity. Even an almost undetectable initial imbalance can grow to near-complete purity within a few reaction cycles.

Kagan’s work on non-linear effects showed how catalysts made of paired molecules can amplify or suppress this imbalance. Together, the discoveries help explain how nature might have arrived at the single-handedness of molecules like DNA and proteins.