A single spectacular structure can be luck. Sixteen structures sharing one topology while spanning a systematic range of pore sizes and chemistries is a method. That is what Eddaoudi and coworkers delivered in 2002 with the IRMOF series: the same Zn4O joint as MOF-5, married to a ladder of linkers from short functionalized terephthalates up to long triple-ring struts, all crystallizing in the identical cubic net.
The paper's power is in its verbs. Pore size was dialed from about 3.8 to 28.8 angstroms. Functionality, bromo, amino, alkoxy groups, was installed on the linker before synthesis and survived into the framework. Density dropped as low as 0.21 g/cm3, then the lowest of any crystalline material. And crucially, the team showed a property payoff: IRMOF-6 stored methane at 240 cm3/g at 36 atmospheres, a genuinely competitive number that gave the isoreticular concept an application anchor rather than leaving it as crystallographic showmanship.
Two critical notes. Several of the larger IRMOFs are interpenetrated or fragile on evacuation, and the paper's framing smooths over how much synthetic screening sat behind the clean final table; isoreticular expansion is a principle, not a guarantee, and later groups found that simply lengthening a linker often yields collapsed or doubly-woven frameworks instead of the intended giant pores. The methane figures, measured before standardized protocols, have also been revised in later benchmarking.
Even so, this is arguably the most methodologically influential MOF paper of its decade. Nearly every 'family' paper since, the UiO series, the MIL series, the ZIF library, follows the template established here: fix the node, vary the linker, tabulate the properties. It taught the field to think in product lines rather than single compounds.