One of the sneaky joys of being a scientist is the opportunity to be the first person in the world to see something new. This is particularly prevalent for crystallographers. Crystals, and crystal structures, are beautiful, and I have been very fortunate to be the first (or second) to meet many amazing structures over the last four decades. This talk will tour a small fraction of these, with the journey starting from the very genesis of what would become the field of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), and end with our current work on porous aminocarboxylate MOFs. Stops along the way will include interpenetration, topology, and even the topology of interpenetration, magnetic coordination polymers and clusters of small cyano anions, and unexpected metallosupramolecules such as catenanes and nanoballs. We will also look at the other footprints a scientific career leaves behind, including (in my case) some rather left-field legacies such as Element Sets and Crystal Explorer Kits in some of the most remote schools in the world, the Big Diamond and the Big Buckyball, and will highlight the value of engaging with professional societies (SCANZ in particular).
Fig. 1. The real beauty of crystals is internal.