French and Japanese researchers will share this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work finding a solution to a century-old chemical mystery.

Henri Kagan, emeritus professor at Université Paris-Sud, and Kenso Soai, emeritus professor at Tokyo University of Science, were named by the discipline’s Nobel committee “for the discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis”, it was announced on 7 October.

The now-solved chemical mystery focuses on how homochirality – the concept that all molecules possess the same handedness, meaning that they are left- or right-handed so are non-identical mirror images – can emerge spontaneously.

The committee said the prize “recognises discoveries that have enabled chemists to drive chemical reactions that lead to homochirality”. Heiner Linke, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said: “The chemical reactions they have developed are spectacular.”

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Kagan and Soai’s discoveries have been “decisive” for chemists who design reactions for the manufacture of pharmaceuticals, according to the committee.

Their half share of the prize recognises decades of work, with Kagan making the first step to the breakthrough in 1986 when he discovered a new method of manipulating chemical reactions. The finding enabled him to create a greater excess of one of the mirror images than previously thought.

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Then Hiroshima-born Soai developed the work further, in 1995 describing how he designed the first-ever chemical reaction that had the potential to be homochiral. He succeeded in 2003, marking the first time the reaction – in which only one of the two possible mirror images was formed – had been achieved other than in life itself.

David Pendlebury, head of research analysis at the Institute for Scientific Information at Clarivate, commented: “Their discoveries helped deepen scientific understanding of chirality, asymmetric synthesis and autocatalysis, opening new directions for chemists exploring how molecular complexity and selectivity arise.

“The award is a reminder that transformative advances often emerge from sustained, curiosity-driven research, and that the significance of fundamental scientific discoveries may take many years, or even decades, to be fully appreciated.”

The first Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded in 1901, and the announcement marks the third of six Nobel awards to be handed out this week. Winners share a prize of SEK 12 million (£900,000).

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frances.jones@timeshighereducation.com