By solving the mystery of chirality, Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai worked out how to design chemical reactions to produce much more of the desired version of a molecule.
Heiner Linke, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, explained: “Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai have provided a solution to a chemical mystery that is over a century old: how homochirality – the selective production of the correct version of a molecule – can emerge spontaneously.
“The chemical reactions they have developed are spectacular.”
Henri Kagan, who is at Université Paris-Sud, first discovered a new way of manipulating chemical reactions in 1986. This allowed him to create a greater excess of one of the mirror images than had previously been thought possible.
Kenso Soai from Tokyo University of Science took the next step in 1995. He published a scientific paper in the journal Nature, external describing the first ever chemical reaction that had the potential to be homochiral – producing only the desired version of an organic molecule.
In 2003, he finally succeeded in controlling a reaction in which only one of the two possible mirror images was formed.
“Other than life itself,” the Nobel Committee said in a statement, “no one had previously achieved this feat”.
At the press conference on Wednesday, Kenso Soai praised the “many, many excellent researchers” in this field.
Professor Robert Mokaya, president of the UK’s Royal Society of Chemistry said it was a “powerful example of how fundamental chemistry can underpin solutions to some of the biggest challenges facing society”.
“Different isomers (or versions of molecules) can have completely different biological and physical effects, so they are crucial in finding effective medicines to treat all sorts of illnesses,” he added.
