General Manager

Dr. Sarah Eckenrode is the General Manager of BioEcho Life Sciences GmbH, a Cologne-based biotechnology company specializing in nucleic acid purification kits.  She holds a Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences with a concentration in Genetics.  With over 20 years of experience in genomics services, Sarah brings a deep understanding of molecular workflows, sample preparation, and customer-driven innovation.  As part of BioEcho Life Sciences, she brings her experience in delivering high-quality genomics solutions to help deliver reliable, scalable purification solutions for biomedical and agrigenomics applications.  BioEcho is dedicated to shaping the next generation of nucleic acid purification products. 

Vice President of Operations & Managing Director

Dr. Benedikt Bürfent is Vice President of Operations and Managing Director of the BioEcho Life Science GmbH. In 2016, he earned his PhD at the University of Bonn, Germany, where he did pioneer work in immunogenetics for a better understanding of how innate immune cells respond to pathogens and regulate inflammation based on the underlying genetic background. In 2016 he became Postdoc at the Institute of Human Genetics at the University of Bonn and later Junior Group Leader at Philipps-University Marburg focused on stimulus-specific expression quantitative trait loci (e²QTLs), revealing on population-scale how genetic variants control gene expression only upon immune activation. Driven by the need for improved nucleic acid purification for modern applications he switched to BioEcho in 2021 and held several senior positions at the time. Over the past decade, Dr. Bürfent’s methodological innovations—spanning high-throughput transcriptomics and multi-omics approaches—have informed both basic immunology and translational applications, culminating in influential publications in re-owned peer-reviewed journals and patents.