Content overview: “Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2025: Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai Win for Solving Molecular Mir”. Kagan and Kenso Soai have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their pioneering work on molecular chirality—the property that makes molecules exist in left- and right-handed forms, like mirror images. Their research solved long-standing mysteries about how these mirror-image molecules behave and how one form can be selectively produced, a challenge that has puzzled chemists for decades. The Nobel committee called their contributions 'spectacular,' noting that their methods have enabled the creation of pure single-handed molecules, which are crucial in pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, and advanced materials.
Kagan, a French chemist, and Soai, from Japan, independently developed catalytic processes that amplify tiny imbalances in handedness into nearly pure products. This breakthrough has transformed how drugs are made, as the wrong mirror image of a molecule can be ineffective or even harmful. The full version stays on the original page, which this listing opens directly.