Continuous and automated bacteria detection is pivotal for a myriad of biomedical, food safety and envi-ronmental applications. This work presents the fabrication of a prototype of a passive (battery-free) radio frequency sensor for wireless detection of bacteria. The sensing mechanism is based on the bacterial-induced (proteases and peptidases) degradation of glutaraldehyde (GTA) cross-linked gelatin-caprylic acid (CA) composite film. Proteolytic degradation of the film resulted in a decrease of its resistivity, a quan-tity that could be wirelessly monitored by coupling the film to a radio-frequency antenna (an inductor-capacitor resonator) and monitoring the frequency for which the transferred power between this antenna and another antenna connected to a Vector Network Analyzer (VNA) was maximized. We experimen-tally proved this concept by monitoring E.coli bacteria in aqueous medium and detected at 18.0 +/- 2.8 h, 23.5 +/- 0.7 h, 27.0 +/- 2.8 h, 40.5 +/- 3.5 h, 45.5 +/- 0.7 h for the initial E.coli concentration of 3.2 +/- 10(8) , 6.8 +/- 10(7) , 2.3 +/- 10(6) , 4.3 +/- 10(5) , and 3.6 +/- 10(4) CFU/mL, respectively. Further, the E.coli induced degrada-tion of the composite film was investigated by evaluating the thickness of the film by optical microscopy as well as morphology by scanning electron microscopy techniques. (C) 2021 Published by Elsevier Ltd.