# Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded to Kagan and Soai

> Chemistry Nobel winners solve life's mirror molecule mystery.
- Title: Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded to Kagan and Soai · BBC News
- Summary: Chemistry Nobel winners solve life's mirror molecule mystery. Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for explaining how life favors…
- Keywords: henri kagan, kenso soai, nobel prize, chemistry, chirality, molecule, mirror image, news, world, Nobel, Prize, awarded
- Source: BBC News — https://bbc.com/news/articles/c6ly038jg0d4o
- Published: 2026-10-07T11:51:52.261+00:00
- Read time: 1 min
- Topics: henri kagan, kenso soai, nobel prize, chemistry, chirality, molecule, mirror image, news, world
## Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to French scientist Henri B. Kagan and Japan's Kenso Soai for providing a solution to the chemical mystery of life's asymmetry.
## Chirality explained
Chirality is the property where molecules exist as mirror images, like hands, and living organisms use only one version.
## Life's mirror molecule problem
Drugs created in labs usually produce a 50-50 mix of mirror image molecules, but life uses only one version.
## Thalidomide example
The Thalidomide drug caused severe birth defects because it mixed both mirror image versions of the molecule.
## Kagan's discovery
Henri Kagan discovered a new way to manipulate chemical reactions in 1986 to create more of the desired molecule version.
## Soai's breakthrough
Kenso Soai published a paper in 1995 describing the first reaction that could produce only one version of a molecule.
## Nobel Committee statement
The Nobel Committee stated that no one had previously achieved creating a single mirror image molecule in the lab.
## Key takeaway

Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for explaining how life favors one version of molecules over their mirror images.