The model hydrophilic adhesive consisted of 2-hydroxyethylmethacrylate (HEMA), triethylene glycol dimethacrylate (TEGDMA) and (trimethoxysilyl) propyl methacrylate (MPS) with a mass ratio of 8/1/1 (HEMA/TEGDMA/MPS). This model hydrophilic adhesive system has been developed and optimized for peptide engineering in our previous investigations (Ye et al., 2011 (link); Abedin et al., 2014 (link); Xie et al., 2020 (link)). The following photoinitiators (all from Aldrich, Milwaukee, WI, United States) were used: camphoroquinone (CQ), ethyl-4-(dimethylamino) benzoate (EDMAB) and diphenyliodonium hexafluorophosphate (DPIHP). The amounts of photosensitizer, coinitiator amine and iodonium salt were fixed at 0.5 mass% with respect to the total amount of monomer (Guo et al., 2008 (link); Ye et al., 2009 (link); Song et al., 2014 (link)). The resin mixtures were prepared in a brown glass vial under amber light. Continuous shaking and sonication for 48 h were required to yield well-mixed homogenous resin solutions (Song et al., 2016 (link)). The hydrophilic adhesive formulation was mixed with 10 mass per-cent co-polymerizable hydroxyapatite-binding peptide, e.g., MMES- KGGG_HABP, and diluted with ethanol in a weight ratio of 80/20.