Chemistry Nobel for Kagan and Soai, honoured for “mirror-image” molecules

The laureates were announced on Wednesday 7 October. They were honoured for their research on so-called mirror-image molecules.

Left hand, right hand

Many molecules come in two versions that are mirror images of each other, like a left and a right hand. Chemists call this property chirality. Both versions are made of the same atoms, but in the body they can act completely differently: one heals, while the other does nothing or causes harm.

That is why drug makers need to produce only the one version they want. The laureates showed how to do it.

Who the laureates are

Henri Kagan worked for many years at the University of Paris-Sud in Orsay. He is one of the pioneers of asymmetric catalysis, in which a catalyst steers a reaction towards one of the two mirror-image forms of a molecule. At 95, he is one of the oldest laureates in Nobel history.

Kenso Soai is associated with the Tokyo University of Science. He is known for a reaction in which a molecule drives the formation of more copies of itself with the same “handedness”. This helps explain why living organisms use only one of the two mirror-image forms of many molecules.

Work in this field has been honoured before: the 2001 prize went to William Knowles, Ryōji Noyori and Barry Sharpless.

The prize is worth 12 million Swedish kronor, about 4.7 million zł. The laureates will receive it in Stockholm on 10 December. On Friday 9 October the Norwegian Nobel Committee announces the Nobel Peace Prize.