Holocaust Survivor Henri Kagan Wins 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry at 95

Holocaust Survivor Henri Kagan Wins 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry at 95.

By Shula Rosen

Henri B. Kagan, whose family hid from the Nazis in a French village, has been awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry at age 95, sharing the honor with Japanese chemist Kenso Soai for research into producing a single molecular mirror image.

Kagan survived the Holocaust after his family took refuge in a French village to escape the Nazis.

After the war, he earned a Ph.D. from the Collège de France and later became a professor at what was then Université Paris-Sud, France.

His research in the 1980s helped establish that chemical reactions could be designed to favor one molecular form over its mirror image, addressing a problem that would become important to the development of modern medicines.

Many molecules exist in forms that appear nearly identical but are not the same, resembling the relationship between right and left hands.

Kagan’s work demonstrated that scientists might be able to direct a reaction toward one of those forms rather than the other.

“The medicines we have today would not be possible without this chemistry,” said Rigoberto Hernandez, president of the American Chemical Society.

Kagan’s research was followed years later by advances from Soai, who developed the first chemical reaction that could efficiently produce only one of a molecule’s mirror images. The process became known as the Soai reaction.

Together, research conducted by Kagan and Soai during the 1980s and 1990s helped solve the challenge of creating a single molecular mirror image. Their work provided methods for describing and designing reactions in which chemistry effectively selects one form of a molecule.

Kagan and Soai will share 12 million Swedish kronor, the amount awarded to the laureates as in previous years.