During the course of a 40-year career with the Eastman Kodak Company, Coover was responsible for writing 460 patents and 60 papers. In 1942, while attempting to make clear plastic gun sights, he worked with cyanoacrylate monomers, but rejected them because they were too sticky. Nine years later, Coover was supervising a group of Kodak chemists investigating heat resistant polymers for jet-plane canopies when once again, cyanoacrylate monomers were tested and proved too sticky. The second time around though, Coover recognized that he had discovered a unique adhesive that required neither heat nor pressure to bond. Super Glue hit the market in 1958. That same year, Coover appeared on TV's "I've Got a Secret," where he hoisted host Garry Moore off the floor with a single drop.
Coover was also the first to recognize and patent cyanoacrylates as human tissue adhesives. These cyanolate adhesives are used in many sutureless surgeries such as the rejoining of veins, arteries, and intestines, ophthalmic surgeries, dental surgeries, uncontrollable bleeding and the repair of soft organs such as the liver and spleen. Coover's adhesive was first used in the Vietnam War to temporarily patch the internal organs of badly injured soldiers until conventional surgery could be performed. Since the 1970's, tissue adhesives have been used for a variety of surgical applications including middle ear surgery, bone and cartilage grafts, repair of cerebrospinal fluid leaks, and skin closure.
Coover is the recipient of the Southern Chemist Man of the Year Award for his outstanding accomplishment in individual innovation and creativity. He also holds the Earle B. Barnes Award for Leadership in Chemical Research Management and the Maurice Holland Award. Coover is a medalist for the Industrial Research Institute, receiving their achievement award in 1999. In 2004, Coover was inducted into the National Inventor's Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio, where he joins the ranks of such inventors as Alexander Graham Bell, Henry Ford and Thomas Edison.
Coover currently resides in Kingsport, Tenn., with wife Muriel and children H. Wesley III, Stephen, and Melinda Coover Paul.
Contribution: Responsible for the inventions of human tissue adhesives and Super Glue
Hometown: Newark, Del.
College Activities: Sigma Chi, Sigma Xi Science Honorary Society
Major: Chemistry
Other Education: Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. (Chemistry, M.S., 1942 and Ph.D. 1944)