Chemistry’s Nobel goes to two architects of asymmetric autocatalysis

NPR reports Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discoveries involving non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis — work that underpins methods for making molecules in specific three-dimensional forms.

As reported, this is a prize for a kind of control: not just making a compound, but making the right-handed or left-handed version of it on purpose — the difference between two molecules that share a formula and behave like different drugs.