The 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai for their work on mirror molecules. The prize was announced in Stockholm on October 7.

Many molecules come in left- and right-handed forms, called enantiomers. They are mirror images, like your two hands, but they can behave very differently.

In the 1980s, Kagan showed how tiny amounts of one mirror form could steer chemical reactions — work with non-linear effects in asymmetric catalysis. Soai discovered reactions where a molecule helps make more of itself, amplifying one hand over the other.

This matters enormously for medicines. One mirror form of a drug can heal while the other harms, so drugmakers must control which form they produce.

The laureates share 12 million Swedish kronor, about $1.2 million. The chemistry prize follows the medicine prize on Monday and physics on Tuesday.

Chirality was first noticed by Louis Pasteur in the 1840s, studying wine crystals. It took over a century for chemists to learn to control it reliably.

Kagan and Soai’s insights now underpin how the pharmaceutical industry makes drugs. Many modern medicines are produced as single mirror forms thanks to their work.