Derivatisation of polystyrene by carbene insertions followed by diazonium coupling permits the introduction of diverse chemical functionality, providing access to materials with similar bulk properties, but in which surface chemical characteristics are systematically varied across a range of surface polarity, hydration and non-bonding interaction behaviour. Protein binding experiments with bovine serum albumin demonstrate that protein adhesion is dependent upon the identity of the surface chemical group, with tert-butyl, hexyl, dimethylamino, amino, and carboxyl modified systems all exhibiting higher levels of binding, while glycol, hydroxyl, and phosphonate give similar or lower levels of binding, relative to the control. This behaviour has been shown to be time dependent, and an approximate trend of protein binding with cheminformatic descriptors %PSA and contact angle was observed.