Kagan and Soai win Chemistry Nobel
Chemistry Nobel awarded for solving mystery of life's asymmetry
Wednesday, 7 October 2026
Photo by RephiLe water on Unsplash
Warm-up
- What science topics are you most interested in?
- Have you heard of the Nobel Prize? What do you know about it?
- Why might mirror images ever matter in real life?
Vocabulary
- chirality
- A property where a molecule has left- and right-handed forms that are mirror images.
- molecule
- A very small unit of a substance made of two or more atoms joined together.
- mirror image
- Something that looks the same in reverse, like your left and right hands.
- amino acid
- A small chemical that is a building block of proteins in living things.
- reaction
- A process where substances change into new substances in chemistry.
- prescribe
- To officially say a patient should take a medicine.
- toxic
- Poisonous or harmful to living things.
- disability
- A physical or mental condition that limits activities or movements.
Reading
Listen to this story
British EnglishThe Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai. They were honoured for explaining why life on Earth uses one handed form of many molecules, not both.
In chemistry this property is called chirality. Amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, come as two mirror images, like left and right hands. Nature favours just one version. In a laboratory, however, a typical reaction makes a 50–50 mix, which can be a problem for drugs.
The laureates showed how to design reactions that produce far more of the desired version. This helps chemists make safer, more effective medicines. In the 1950s the drug thalidomide was prescribed for morning sickness. One version worked, but the other was toxic, and many children were born with severe disabilities.
Kagan reported a key method in 1986, and Soai later demonstrated a reaction that made only one mirror image. Their work also offers clues to how life's asymmetry began.
Comprehension
- Who won this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry?
- What everyday example does the text use to explain chirality?
- Why can a 50–50 lab mix be a problem for drugs?
- Which 1950s medicine is given as a warning example?
- What did Soai later show a reaction could do?
Grammar focus
Second conditional
We use the second conditional for unreal or unlikely situations now or in the future. Form: If + past simple, would + base verb (be → were in formal English). (Examples constructed.)
- If a reaction used both hands, drugs would be less safe.
- If teams controlled chirality, chemists would make purer medicines.
Grammar exercise
Complete each sentence with would + base verb (second conditional).
- If labs controlled chirality, teams (design) ___ safer drugs.
- If one form were toxic, it (harm) ___ patients.
- If nature used both hands, evolution (take) ___ longer.
- If reactions were 50–50, companies (need) ___ filters.
- If regulators checked chirality, medicines (become) ___ safer.
Discussion
- Why does chirality matter for medicines, in your view?
- How could this research help patients in the future?
- Is basic research valuable even without quick results? Why?
- What other left/right examples in nature can you think of?
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