KYOTO—When the phone call came at 5:30 p.m. on Oct. 8, Susumu Kitagawa thought it was just another annoying telemarketer interrupting his work in the lab. But the Swedish caller would change his life forever. Kitagawa had been named a co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, for his groundbreaking work on metal-organic frameworks (MOFs)—a discovery that could help combat climate change and revolutionize energy storage. “I was shocked. I thought it was one of those strange solicitation calls I ...