Bio-inspired Human Serum Albumin (HSA) imprinted polydopamine nano-layer was produced through oxidative polymerization of dopamine on the pore surface of HSA modified porous silica particles. The coating thickness was controlled by the reaction time and thereby varied within 0-12 nm. The samples were characterized by elemental analysis, FT-IR, DSC, SEM, TEM, TGA, physisorption and thermoporometry. The characterization confirmed the success of evolution and deposition of polydopamine layer on the silica pore surface. Batch rebinding experiment showed that the molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) with 8.7 nm coating thickness, in comparison with the thinner and thicker coatings, displays the highest uptake of the target protein. The chromatographic evaluation of the materials packed in HPLC columns showed that the HSA imprinted polydopamine offers good mechanical stability and retains practically all the target protein from an NSA solution or human plasma. Affinity of the imprinting column was examined by using Bovine Serum Albumin (BSA) and Immunoglobulin G (IgG) as competitive proteins. The results showed that the template, HSA, was the most adsorbed protein by the imprinted polydopamine layer. Crown Copyright (c) 2013 Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.