Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded to Kagan and Soai - BBC
French scientist Henri B. Kagan and Japanese researcher Kenso Soai have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Their work explains the phenomenon of chirality, detailing why nature favors specific mirror-image molecules in biological processes.
Why it matters
Understanding molecular asymmetry is critical for pharmaceutical safety, as demonstrated by the historical dangers of drugs like Thalidomide where mirror-image molecules had vastly different biological effects.
Share Save Add as preferred on Google Victoria Gill and Esme Stallard BBC Science team Beata Zawrzel/Getty Images The winners are awarded the Nobel Prize medal and a share of 12.0 million Swedish Kroner ($1.25m; £900,000) The Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to French scientist Henri B. Kagan and Japan's Kenso Soai for providing a solution to the chemical mystery of life's asymmetry.
The researchers discovered how nature exclusively makes the correct version of a molecule - rather than its mirror image.
For example, amino acid molecules, the building blocks of proteins, exist as two forms that are each other's mirror image.
But living organisms on Earth only function with one of those forms. The Nobel laureates answered the question: why does life favour just one of these mirror image molecules over the other.
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8 other newsrooms covered this event. We read each version separately.
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