French scientist Henri Kagan and Japanese researcher Kenso Soai have been named this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry laureates for their work on how molecules can take different mirror-image forms during chemical reactions.
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The Nobel Committee recognized the two researchers “for the discovery of nonlinear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis.”
Kagan is affiliated with Université Paris-Sud in Orsay, France, while Soai, 95, is affiliated with the University of Tokyo University of Science in Japan.
Their research has answered one of chemistry’s oldest questions: how homochirality, a phenomenon that has remained unexplained for more than 100 years, can arise spontaneously.
Heiner Linke, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, described the chemical reactions developed by Kagan and Soai as spectacular.
The field of research concerns the ability of molecules to exist in two forms that are mirror images of each other. This phenomenon is particularly important in the pharmaceutical industry, as the two forms of the same molecule can produce different biological effects.
The laureates were announced in Stockholm by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
This year’s Nobel Prize winners will share a fund of 12 million Swedish kronor, equivalent to around 1.2 million dollars, divided according to the number of laureates.
The Nobel Prize announcements began with the Medicine category, followed by Physics.
The Nobel Prize in Literature is expected to be announced on Thursday, while the Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Friday. The laureate of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences will be announced on Monday.
