Nobel Prize Winner Soai's Discovery May Shed Light on Life's Origins

Tokyo, Oct. 9 (Jiji Press)--A reaction discovered by Kenso Soai, co-winner of the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, may help explain why life on Earth uses only one of the two mirror-image molecular forms and guide the search for the origins and traces of life.

Organic molecules, such as amino acids, that are essential to life can exist in two mirror-image forms, much like left and right gloves. Yet life on Earth uses only one of the two. Why this asymmetry emerged has long puzzled scientists.

Soai, 76, a professor emeritus at Tokyo University of Science, discovered a reaction in which a very tiny difference between the two forms is amplified until one predominates.

This process, known as asymmetric autocatalysis, demonstrates that such an imbalance can arise naturally. It came to be known as the Soai reaction.

The question that follows is where such a process arose.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]