Nobel Prize in chemistry awarded to Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai

Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai won the Nobel Prize in chemistry Wednesday for their discovery of “non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis.”

Kagan discovered a new way of manipulating chemical reactions, allowing a greater excess of one of the mirror images to be created than was previously assumed possible. His discovery has been revolutionary for chemists who develop reactions for the manufacture of pharmaceuticals, flavours, scents and new materials.

Meanwhile, Soai designed the first chemical reaction in which only one of the potential mirror images was formed. Other than life itself, no one had ever achieved this feat. The Soai reaction is one of the most spectacular chemical experiments ever conducted, the Nobel Committee for Chemistry said.

“Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai have provided a solution to a chemical mystery that is over a century old: how homochirality can emerge spontaneously,” Heiner Linke, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said in a news release. “The chemical reactions they have developed are spectacular.”

Kagan, born in France, is affiliated with Université Paris-Sud in Orsay, France, and Soai, 95 years old and born in Japan, with the Tokyo University of Science.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced…

Original source: https://www.nbcnews.com/world