NanoUtbildning™

Did you know many molecules appear as two different mirror image forms that have different chemical and biological effects? This year's chemistry laureate Kenso Soai designed the first chemical reaction in which only one of the potential mirror images was formed. Other than life itself, no one had previously achieved this feat. The reaction, that has been named the Soai reaction, is one of the most spectacular chemical experiments ever conducted. Thanks to Soai and his co-laureate Henri Kagan, we now know how homochirality – when only one mirror image is formed – can emerge and chemists have gained fundamental new tools for use in their daily work. Their discoveries have contributed to solving one of chemistry’s greatest mysteries: how homochirality – like that found in all living beings – can be created. One week ago, Kenso Soai shared the 2026 chemistry prize "for the discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis." Listen to our interview with Soai: nobelprize.org/prizes/chemis…

Curiosity often sparks scientific breakthroughs. For 2026 medicine laureate Peter Hegemann, it began with a question: how could a tiny green alga called Chlamydomonas react so rapidly to light? The Chlamydomonas algae is famous for its ability to swim towards light. When the alga is stirred into a petri dish, the liquid turns a faint green colour. If one side of the dish is illuminated, the green colour moves towards the light source, as the microscopic algae swim towards it. The algae sense the light with an eyespot, a dot on the cell’s surface that contains a light-capturing molecule, retinal. Hegemann discovered electrical signals in the light-sensitive eyespot that occurred just half a millisecond after illumination, far faster than the response of the human eye. He could only think of one explanation for this ultrafast response: the process must be much simpler than in a human eye. He proposed that a single protein could both detect light and act as an ion channel, an idea initially met with scepticism. After years of experiments with his colleague Georg Nagel, Hegemann's hypothesis proved to be correct. Together, they discovered proteins that functioned exactly as he had predicted: ion channels that opened in response to light. This breakthrough laid the foundation for optogenetics, a revolutionary technique that allows scientists to control individual nerve cells with light. What began as a question about a microscopic alga ultimately helped transform the field of neuroscience. Read more about the newly awarded 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine: bit.ly/4jNd5w7

Kenso Soai – awarded the 2026 #NobelPrize in Chemistry – designed the first chemical reaction in which only one of the potential mirror images was formed. Other than life itself, no one had ever achieved this feat. The Soai reaction is one of the most spectacular chemical experiments ever conducted.

Have you heard of ‘creative destruction’? The notion that new innovations displace existing technologies is central to the work of last years’ economic sciences laureates and offers hope in an age of advancing AI. Learn more about the announcements of this year's prizes, including the 2026 economic sciences prize at bit.ly/2QRp4Jp #NobelPrize