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Barbara R. Leite is the Director of the Research & Innovation Department at RDD Textiles. She holds a PhD in Biology, and has an extensive work and specialization in molecular ecology and molecular biology. She has collaborated on different research projects, from the identification and valorization of by-products for industrial applications to European marine monitoring consortiums. Since 2021, she works in the textile industry collaborating as a scientific researcher. Currently, she is in charge of the R&D department working on the exploration and implementation of technologies and innovative solutions in the textile area, from recycling to dyeing approaches.
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Identification

Personal identification

Full name
Bárbara Daniela da Rocha Leite

Citation names

  • Leite, Barbara Rocha
  • Leite, BR

Author identifiers

Ciência ID
5918-6778-F2BA
ORCID iD
0000-0003-4440-1298

Addresses

  • Rua do Arranjinho 381 Fração Q Pavilhão 17, 4750-803, Barcelos, Barcelos, Portugal (Professional)

Knowledge fields

  • Engineering and Technology - Materials Engineering - Textiles
  • Natural sciences - Biological Sciences - Molecular Biology

Languages

Language Speaking Reading Writing Listening Peer-review
Portuguese Advanced (C1) Advanced (C1) Advanced (C1) Advanced (C1)
English Intermediate (B1) Intermediate (B1) Intermediate (B1) Intermediate (B1)
German Beginner (A1) Beginner (A1) Beginner (A1) Beginner (A1)
Education
Degree Classification
2016/10/01 - 2021/03/31
Concluded
 Doutoramento em Biologia (Doutoramento)
Major in Integral Management of the Sea
Universidade do Minho Departamento de Biologia, Portugal

Universidade de Vigo Departamento de Ecoloxía e Bioloxía Animal, Spain
"Monitoring coastal benthic colonization of artificial substrates with the support of DNA metabarcoding approaches" (THESIS/DISSERTATION)
2015
Concluded
 Mestrado em Genética Molecular (Mestrado)
Universidade do Minho Escola de Ciências, Portugal
"Priming of a DNA metabarcoding approach for species identification and inventory in marine macrobenthic communities" (THESIS/DISSERTATION)
 17
2013
Concluded
 Licenciatura em Biologia Aplicada (Licenciatura)
Universidade do Minho Escola de Ciências, Portugal
"Molecular identification of yeats and bacteria from agrofood biowastes" (THESIS/DISSERTATION)
 14
Affiliation

Others

Category
Host institution 		Employer
2022/07/07 - Current Empresa do ramo da indústria têxtil RDD TEXTILES, Portugal
RDD TEXTILES, Portugal
2021/10/01 - 2022/06/30 Empresa do ramo da indústria têxtil VALÉRIUS TÊXTEIS, Portugal
VALÉRIUS TÊXTEIS, Portugal
2016/10/01 - 2021/03/31 Doctoral Program in Marine Science, Technology and Management (Do*Mar) - Integral Management of the Sea. Thesis title: “Monitoring coastal benthic colonization of artificial substrates with the suppor Universidade do Minho, Portugal
Universidade do Minho Centro de Biologia Molecular e Ambiental, Portugal
2016/10/01 - 2021/03/31 Investigador visitante Universidade de Vigo, Spain
CIM-UVIGO, ECIMAT Matine Station, Spain
2012/04/01 - 2013/07/31 Traineeship Universidade do Minho Centro de Biologia Molecular e Ambiental, Portugal
Universidade do Minho Departamento de Biologia, Portugal
Projects

Grant

Designation Funders
2016/10/01 - 2020/11/30 Monitoring coastal benthic of artificial sbstrates with the support of DNA metabarcoding approaches
PD/BD/127994/2016
Researcher
Universidade do Minho, Portugal
 Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia
Concluded

Contract

Designation Funders
2023/03/23 - Current TEST BED 4 ADVANCED TEXTILE MATERIALS
Project nº193
Principal investigator
RDD TEXTILES, Portugal
 Agência para a Competitividade e Inovação IP
Ongoing
2018 - Current Early detection and monitoring of non-indigenous species (NIS) in coastal ecosystems based on high-throughput sequencing tools
PTDC/BIA-BMA/29754/2017
Researcher
Universidade do Minho Centro de Biologia Molecular e Ambiental, Portugal
 Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia
Ongoing
2021/10/01 - 2021/12/31 SMASK: Smart Mask with colorimetric biossensor for SARS-CoV-2 contamination and humidity
POCI-01-02B7-FEDER-070241
Researcher
Autoridade de Gestão do Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalização
Concluded
2016/10/01 - 2019 THE NEXTSEA: Next generation monitoring of coastal ecosystems in a scenario of global change
NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-0000032
Researcher
Universidade do Minho Centro de Biologia Molecular e Ambiental, Portugal
 Comissao de Coordenacao e Desenvolvimento Regional do Norte
Concluded
Outputs

Publications

Conference abstract
  1. Leite, Barbara; Vieira, Pedro E.; Troncoso, Jesus S.; Costa, Filipe O.. "Combining artificial substrates, morphology and DNA metabarcoding for investigating macrozoobenthic communities in NW Iberia". 2019.
    Published • 10.3389/conf.fmars.2019.08.00061
Conference poster
  1. Leite, BR. "Optimized Pre-Treatments and Recycling Strategies for Textile Waste". Paper presented in 93rd TIWC - Textile Institute World Conference, 2025.
  2. Leite, BR. "Pre-treatment decolorization methods to improve the recycling of textile waste". Paper presented in iTechStyle Summit 2025, 2025.
  3. Leite, BR; Vieira, Pedro E.; Troncoso, Jesus S.; Costa, Filipe O.. "Combining artificial substrates, morphology and DNA metabarcoding for investigating marine amphipod communities in NW Iberia". Paper presented in 18th International Colloquium on Amphipoda (18th ICA), 2019.
  4. Leite, BR; Troncoso, Jesus S.; Costa, Filipe O.. "Bioassessment of marine macrobenthic colonization of artificial substrates using morphological and DNA-based methodologies". Paper presented in 3rd Central European Symposium for Aquatic Macroinvertebrate Research (3rd CESAMIR), 2018.
  5. Leite, BR; Hollatz, Claudia; Lobo, J.; Froufe, H.; Egas, C.; Costa, Filipe O.. "A short test on the impact of sequencing platform and marker on marine macrobenthos identification". Paper presented in Kick-Off Conference of the DNAqua-Net on the European Cooperation in Science and Technology, 2017.
  6. Leite, BR; Hollatz, C.; Lobo, J.; Froufe, H.; Egas, C.; Costa, Filipe O.. "Impact of OTU-clustering on taxonomic richness estimation in marine macrobenthic communities with known species composition". Paper presented in Kick-Off Conference of the DNAqua-Net on the European Cooperation in Science and Technology, 2017.
Journal article
  1. Anabela Gonçalves; Bárbara R. Leite; Carla Silva. "Sustainability Index in Apparel: A Multicriteria Model Covering Environmental Footprint, Social Impacts, and Durability". Sustainability (2025): https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/17/8004.
    10.3390/su17178004
  2. Micaela Gomes; Helena P. Felgueiras; Barbara R. Leite; Graça M. B. Soares. "Colourful Protection: Challenges and Perspectives of Antibacterial Pigments Extracted from Bacteria for Textile Applications". Antibiotics (2025): https://doi.org/10.3390/antibiotics14050520.
    10.3390/antibiotics14050520
  3. Barbara R. Leite; Sofia Duarte; Jesús S. Troncoso; Filipe O. Costa. "Artificial Seaweed Substrates Complement ARMS in DNA Metabarcoding-Based Monitoring of Temperate Coastal Macrozoobenthos". Diversity (2023): https://doi.org/10.3390/d15050657.
    10.3390/d15050657
  4. Sofia Duarte; Pedro E. Vieira; Barbara R. Leite; Marcos A.L. Teixeira; João M. Neto; Filipe O. Costa. "Macrozoobenthos monitoring in Portuguese transitional waters in the scope of the water framework directive using morphology and DNA metabarcoding". Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science (2023): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecss.2022.108207.
    10.1016/j.ecss.2022.108207
  5. Monica Vieira; Ana Margarida Nascimento; Cristina Abreu; Bárbara Leite; Mariana Silva; Simon Rouly; Ricardo Ferraz; et al. "Development of a sustainable biosensor to detect respiratory infectious diseases". inSTEMM Journal (2022): http://dx.doi.org/10.56725/instemm.v1is2.13.
    10.56725/instemm.v1is2.13
  6. Barbara R. Leite; Pedro E. Vieira; Jesús S. Troncoso; Filipe O. Costa. "¿Comparing species detection success between molecular markers in DNA metabarcoding of coastal macroinvertebrates". Metabarcoding and Metagenomics (2021): https://doi.org/10.3897/mbmg.5.70063.
    10.3897/mbmg.5.70063
  7. Sofia Duarte; Barbara R. Leite; Maria João Feio; Filipe O. Costa; Ana Filipa Filipe. "Integration of DNA-Based Approaches in Aquatic Ecological Assessment Using Benthic Macroinvertebrates". Water 13 3 (2021): 331-331. https://doi.org/10.3390/w13030331.
    10.3390/w13030331
  8. Leite, B.R.; Vieira, P.E.; Teixeira, M.A.L.; Lobo-Arteaga, J.; Hollatz, C.; Borges, L.M.S.; Duarte, S.; Troncoso, J.S.; Costa, F.O.. "Gap-analysis and annotated reference library for supporting macroinvertebrate metabarcoding in Atlantic Iberia". Regional Studies in Marine Science (2020): 101307. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rsma.2020.101307.
    10.1016/j.rsma.2020.101307
  9. Leite, BR. "Scientific abstracts from the 8th International Barcode of Life Conference". Genome (2019): http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/gen-2019-0083.
    10.1139/gen-2019-0083
  10. Leite, BR. "Scientific abstracts from the 7th International Barcode of Life Conference / Résumés scientifiques du 7e Conférence internationale « Barcode of Life »". Genome (2017): http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/gen-2017-0178.
    10.1139/gen-2017-0178
  11. Leite, BR. "Priming of a DNA metabarcoding approach for species identification and inventory in marine macrobenthic communities". Genome (2017): http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/gen-2015-0220.
    10.1139/gen-2015-0220
Preprint
  1. Sofia Duarte; Pedro E. Vieira; Barbara R. Leite; Marcos A.L. Teixeira; João M. Neto; Filipe O. Costa. "Comparing DNA metabarcoding with morphology in the assessment of macrozoobenthos in Portuguese transitional waters in the scope of the Water Framework Directive monitoring". 2022. https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.05.10.491303.
    10.1101/2022.05.10.491303
Activities

Oral presentation

Presentation title Event name
Host (Event location)
2024/10/01 O potencial biotecnológico dos recursos marinhos portugueses BIOMEET
P-BIO (Portugal)
2024/03/19 Sustainable Textile Innovations: Trends & Opportunities for Fashion Industry 3rd BIO-BASED & RECYCLED TEXTILES
(Netherlands)
2023/11/09 Towards a more sustainable textile industry: The Valérius’s case ETP Masterclass: Strategies and business models to drive systemic change
ETP
2023/05/11 From waste to textiles: the new (un)conventional industry iTechStyle Summit 2023 - 5th International Conference on Textile and Clothing
CITEVE (Portugal)
2022/07 Têxteis do futuro e sustentabilidade RODA
ESAD (Porto, Portugal)
2020/12 Assessing the diversity of coastal macroinvertebrate assemblages growing in artificial substrates based on morphology and DNA metabarcoding approaches TiBE 2020 - Metabarcoding and Metagenomics
CIBIO-InBIO
2019/11/07 Metabarcoding of marine macroinvertebrate communities Master in Ecology (Molecular Ecology class)
Universidade do Minho, Departamento Biologia (Braga, Portugal)
2019/09/12 Combining artificial substrates, morphology and DNA metabarcoding for investigating macrozoobenthic communities in NW Iberia XX Iberian Symposium on Marine Biology Studies (SIEBM XX)
(Braga, Portugal)
2018/11/22 Monitoring coastal benthic colonization of artificial substrates with the support of DNA metabarcoding approaches Master in Ecology (Molecular Ecology class)
Universidade do Minho, Departamento Biologia (Braga, Portugal)
2017/12/15 DNA metabarcoding for high-throughput monitoring of coastal benthic colonization 1st NextSea Workshop
Instituto de Ciência e Inovação para a Bio-Sustentabilidade (Braga, Portugal)
2017/07/13 Impact of sequencing platform, target amplicon and OTU-clustering on DNA metabarcoding of marine macrobenthos Advanced Course on Genomics, Metagenomics and Bioinformatics
Universidade do Minho, Departamento Biologia (Braga, Portugal)

Supervision

Thesis Title
Role 		Degree Subject (Type)
Institution / Organization
2023 - Current Exploring Bacteria-Origin Pigments in Textile Dyeing for Developing Antibacterial Intimate Clothing and Preventing Vaginal Infections
Co-supervisor
 Engenharia Têxtil (PhD)
Universidade do Minho, Portugal
2024/04 - 2024/06 Produtos e processos da indústria têxtil com foco no tingimento com plantas aromáticas
Supervisor
 Licenciatura em Bioengenharia (Degree)
Universidade do Porto Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas Abel Salazar, Portugal

Event organisation

Event name
Type of event (Role) 		Institution / Organization
2019/09/09 - 2019/09/12 XX Iberian Symposium on Marine Biology Studies (SIEBM XX) (2019/09/09 - 2019/09/12)
Congress (Member of the Organising Committee)
 Universidade do Minho, Portugal
2019/04 - 2019/04 Código de Barras da Vida - Open Weekend to high school students (2019/04 - 2019/04)
Other (Co-organisor)
 Universidade do Minho Departamento de Biologia, Portugal
2018/01/24 - 2018/01/25 Workshop organization on the context of the “Working Group 1: DNA Barcode References” from DNAqua-Net on the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST Action CA15219) (2018/01/24 - 2018/01/25)
Workshop (Member of the Organising Committee)
 Universidade do Minho Centro de Biologia Molecular e Ambiental, Portugal
2013/02/27 - 2013/03/01 XIV Jornadas de Biologia Aplicada: BioPercursos no século XXI (2013/02/27 - 2013/03/01)
Conference (Member of the Organising Committee)
 Universidade do Minho Departamento de Biologia, Portugal

Event participation

Activity description
Type of event 		Event name
Institution / Organization
2018/12/18 - Current Workshop "Molecular approaches for monitoring of aquatic ecosystems and biodiversity"
Workshop
 Molecular approaches for monitoring of aquatic ecosystems and biodiversity
Universidade do Porto Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos, Portugal
2021/12/07 - 2021/12/10 Apresentação de poster Científico: Development of sustainable biosensor to detect respiratory infections diseases.
Conference
 STEMM Smart Nanomarterials
2018/12/17 - 2018/12/17 Workshop on the context of the "Working Group 3: Macroinvertebrates metabarcoding" from DNAqua-Net on the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST Action CA15219)
Workshop
 Working Group 3: Macroinvertebrates metabarcoding
Universidade do Porto Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos, Portugal
2017/05/01 - 2017/05/05 7th DNA metabarcoding Spring School
Other
 7th DNA metabarcoding Spring School
Universidade do Porto Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos, Portugal
2017/04 - 2017/05 Communication Soft Skills
Workshop
 Course on Communication Soft Skills
Universidade do Minho Centro de Biologia Molecular e Ambiental, Portugal
2017/01/16 - 2017/01/31 Basic Concepts of programming in R
Workshop
 Curse on Basic Concepts of programming in R
Universidade do Minho Centro de Biologia Molecular e Ambiental, Portugal

Jury of academic degree

Topic
Role 		Candidate name (Type of degree)
Institution / Organization
2021/12/15 Contributos da biotecnologia de fagos: aplicações à indústria têxtil e agroindústria
(Thesis) Main arguer
 Marlene de Fátima Soares Sebastião Veiga (Master)
Instituto Politécnico do Porto Escola Superior de Saúde, Portugal

Association member

Society Organization name Role
2018 - Current Pint of Science. Pint of Science Portugal Membro da equipa (tesoureira)

Course / Discipline taught

Academic session Degree Subject (Type) Institution / Organization
2020/03/03 - 2020/03/04 Colaboração na preparação e na lecionação de aulas práticas de Biodiversidade e alterações globais: Conhecer, explorar e obter informação a partir da base de dados World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) Biologia Aplicada, Biologia e Geologia e Ciências do Ambiente (Licenciatura) Universidade do Minho Departamento de Biologia, Portugal
2017/11 - 2017/11 Colaboração na preparação e na lecionação de aulas práticas de Ecologia Molecular (PCR, DNA barcoding, Eletroforese) Ecologia (Mestrado) Universidade do Minho Departamento de Biologia, Portugal

Journal scientific committee

Journal title (ISSN) Publisher
2022/03/01 - Current Biodiversity and Conservation
2021/04/01 - Current Peer J
Distinctions

Award

2020 Transnational Access Grant for conducting a short project in CIM-UVIGO, ECIMAT, Spain
ASSEMBLE Plus, France
2019 Best oral presentation at the XX Iberian Symposium on Marine Biology Studies (SIEBM XX
2018 ITC Conference Grant
DNAqua-Net (COST Action CA15219) , Germany