Laura Howes led C&EN’s Nobel webinar on Thursday, Oct. 1, putting Nobel Prize 2026 chemistry predictions in front of readers just days before the announcements. Her session centered on names and research areas that panelists and readers think are in range for the prize.
Howes said, “This year’s favorites include electron transfer in proteins, solar cells, DNA sequencing, self-assembled monolayers, and glycoprotein synthesis.”
Howes and the panelists
Howes hosted the discussion as C&EN executive editor, with Ross King, Amy Prieto, and Chaochao Dun joining her as prize-predicting panelists. The format matters because it did not try to forecast one winner; it laid out several competing groups and the research themes each panelist saw as strongest.
That made the webinar more than a list of guesses. It gave readers a snapshot of which chemistry areas had enough momentum to draw repeated attention before the Nobel Prize announcements.
Gray, Winkler, and DNA
Prieto chose Harry B. Gray and Jay Winkler for long-range electron transfer in proteins. She also chose David L. Allara, Ralph G. Nuzzo, and Jacob Sagiv for self-assembled monolayers. Clarivate added those five researchers to its 2026 list of predicted laureates, using citations and research influence as the basis for its selections.
King and Dun pointed to Sir Shankar Balasubramanian and Sir David Klenerman for next-generation DNA sequencing. King added Hagan Bayley as the third researcher to share the award, while Dun selected Pascal Mayer in that third slot. Webinar attendees voted that some constellation of DNA sequencing scientists will win this year.
Solar cells and glycoproteins
Dun also picked Tsutomu Miyasaka, Nam-Gyu Park, and Henry Snaith for perovskite solar cells. Howes chose Chi-Huey Wong for programmable synthesis of carbohydrates and glycoproteins, and a C&EN readers’ poll put Wong at the top by a large margin. Readers also picked Harry B. Gray, Patrick Holland, and Krzysztof Matyjaszewski.
Most of the named contenders appear every year as favorites, yet the discussion still came back to the same point: it is anyone’s guess who will win. That recurring cast shows how the Nobel Prize 2026 conversation is being narrowed to a few research lines, even as the final choice remains unsettled.
For readers tracking the prize, the practical takeaway is simple: the strongest attention is going to DNA sequencing, electron transfer in proteins, self-assembled monolayers, solar cells, and glycoprotein synthesis. The Nobel Prize announcements are just a few days away, and the question now is which of those names, if any, ends up on the final list.
Ross King and Hiroaki Kitano
King’s role in the webinar carried a longer arc as well. In 2016, he cofounded the Nobel Turing Challenge with Hiroaki Kitano, linking this year’s prediction exercise to a wider effort to think ahead about prize-level science. The webinar did not settle the debate, but it did show where the pressure points are before the Nobel Prize 2026 chemistry announcement.
That leaves the same open question the panel could not answer on Oct. 1: which prediction, if any, will match the actual Nobel Prize in Chemistry announcement?
