New Delhi, Oct. 7 -- The 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Henri B Kagan and Kenso Soai. They are honoured for their discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis.

Kagan found how to create more of one mirror image than was thought possible. This has transformed how chemists develop reactions for pharmaceuticals, flavours, scents and new materials.

Soai designed the first chemical reaction to form only one possible mirror image at the molecular level. Until this, only living things could produce a single mirror form of a molecule. No lab reaction had ever done it. The Soai reaction is one of the most spectacular chemical experiments ever conducted.

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