Coronavirus Researcher ‘on Verge of Breakthrough’ Shot Dead
A researcher in the United States who was shot dead at the weekend in an apparent murder-suicide had been close to a breakthrough in a scientific understanding of the new coronavirus.
The University of Pittsburgh said Bing Liu, a 37-year-old research assistant professor at its computational and systems biology department, had been “on the verge of making very significant findings” into the virus before his death from multiple gunshot wounds.
According to local newspaper Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Liu was at his home in western Pennsylvania at around noon on Saturday when he was shot by Hao Gu, 46, who then killed himself.
Local police said the incident “was the result of a lengthy dispute regarding an intimate partner”. Since both men were not US citizens, the investigation was handed to federal authorities to review.
The university said Liu had been part of a team modelling various biological systems in a bid to understand the cellular mechanisms of the new coronavirus, as well as the cellular basis of health complications found in Covid-19 patients. “He was patient, intelligent and extremely mature. We will miss him very much,” it said. (Read more from “Coronavirus Researcher ‘on Verge of Breakthrough’ Shot Dead” HERE)
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