Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2026: The Biological Basis for Selective Homomer Formation
Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2026: How Can Life Become Homochiral? From a tiny chemical imbalance to the “one-handed” chemistry of life All about Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2026: How Can Life Become Homochiral? Credits: @FST On 7 October 2026 , the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2026 to Henri B. Kagan of UniversitĂ© Paris-Sud, France, and Kenso Soai of Tokyo University of Science, Japan, “for the discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis.” Their work addresses a fundamental question in chemistry: how can a chemical system containing two possible mirror-image molecules develop a strong preference for one of them? This question leads directly to one of biology’s most intriguing chemical features: homochirality . Before going further, one terminology point is important. Homochirality means a strong preference for one molecular handedness. Homomers , by contrast, are molecular assemblies made from identical subuni...