| 1. Born with a 50% chance of survival, despite being very weak. |
| 2. Grew up on Edgelaw Farm without electricity until the age of 18. |
| 3. Worked at the farm during teenage years. |
| 4. Took piano lessons and played hockey while in school. |
| 5. Was gifted a Lambretta scooter at the age of 16. |
| 6. Met Norma Scholan during the pursuit of a PhD. |
| 7. Moved to Canada to further education. |
| 8. Retyped Norma's PhD thesis after a coffee spill accident. |
| 9. Currently a lecturer at Sheffield University and a Professor at UCLA. |
| 10. Founded the skincare brand Noble Panacea in 2019. |
| 11. Co-founded the startup H2MOF in 2021. |
| 12. Has an impressive h-index of 175 and has trained nearly 450 PhD students. |
| 13. Renowned for the work on molecular machines and switches in Chemistry. |
| 14. Awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry jointly with Jean-Pierre Sauvage and Ben Feringa for the design and synthesis of molecular machines. |
| 15. Knighted as Knight Bachelor in 2007. |
| 16. King Faisal Prize in Science 2007 Laureate for work in molecular recognition and self-assembly. |
| 17. Published over 1,300 scientific papers during his career. |
| 18. Raised in the village of Carrington, Scotland. |
| 19. Early schooling at the local village school in Carrington, Midlothian, before Melville College in Edinburgh. |
| 20. Pioneered the development of mechanically interlocked molecular compounds such as catenanes and rotaxanes used as molecular switches and motor-molecules. |
| 21. Director of the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) at UCLA from 2003 to 2007. |
| 22. Board of Trustees Professor of Chemistry at Northwestern University from 2008. |
| 23. Chair Professor in Chemistry at the University of Hong Kong. |
