The US police announced that a professor at the University of Pittsburgh in the state of Pennsylvania in the United States, was about to achieve "very important results" in research on Covid-19 infection caused by the emergence of coronavirus, apparently shot during the weekend.
According to CNN, the assistant professor, identified as Ping Liu, 37, was found at his home on Saturday with gunshot wounds to the head, neck, torso and extremities, according to the police department.
Liu's wife survived, because she was not at home during the shooting.
Liu's neighbors reported that they had heard no sound of gunfire.
Investigators believe that a second unidentified man, who was found dead in his car, shot and killed Liu at his home, then returned to his car and killed himself.
The second corpse is returned to Hao Gu, 46, who killed Liu, went back to his car and killed himself in it, and the police could not determine or predict the relationship between them, adding that nothing had been stolen or lost from the Chinese researcher's home.
This crime is a lot of mystery, especially that "Liu" and "Joe" know each other, according to the Pennsylvania Police, who also indicated that the motive behind the killing has not yet been reached.
According to investigator Brian Kulheb, the police believe the two men know each other, but say, "There is no indication of a target because he (Liu) is Chinese."
According to the Ross Township Police Department statement on Tuesday: "We have found no evidence that this tragic event has to do with work at the University of Pittsburgh, or any work taking place at the University of Pittsburgh and the current health crisis affecting the United States, countries and the world."
According to the local newspaper, "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette", Liu was at his home in western Pennsylvania around noon on Saturday when he shot Hao Guo, who then killed himself.
The local police said the accident was "the result of a long dispute over an intimate partner." Since the two men are not US citizens, the investigation has been submitted to the federal authorities for review.
The university issued a statement saying that it was "deeply saddened by the death of Ping Liu, the researcher and his colleague. The university expresses deep sympathy to Liu's family, friends and colleagues during this difficult period."
The news about Liu’s death still fluctuates between suicide and assassination.
A research assistant professor at the University of #Pittsburgh, Bing Liu, who was working on #WuhanCoronaVirus research, killed in his apartment. Liu was on the verge of making very significant findings in the research. @ 41actionnews # 華裔 科學家 # 研究 肺 有 重大 發現 ic pic.twitter.com/kEJTLIIAPy
- Nikki😷 (@nikki_miumiu) May 5, 2020In this context, his colleagues in the Department of Computer Science and Systems at the University of Pittsburgh blew a surprise of the caliber issued in a statement issued by the university's medical center that the Chinese researcher "was about to reach very important results toward understanding the cellular mechanisms that underlie SARS-CoV- 2 The cellular basis of the following complications ", which is a mystery that scientists have not yet solved.
The university’s medical faculty members describe their former colleague as a distinguished researcher and mentor, and vowed to complete Liu’s research “in an effort to honor his scientific excellence.”
Shot to death.
A medical researcher on the "verge of making very significant" coronavirus findings was found shot to death over the weekend in Pennsylvania, officials said.
Bing Liu, 37, was a researcher at University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. https://t.co/HoItSy2ZsR pic.twitter.com/AgL2NgYNTX
Liu received his Bachelor's and Doctorate degrees in Computer Science at the National University of Singapore. He co-authored more than 30 papers and reports, and wrote a book on computational modeling for biological pathways in 2012.
His most recent work, published on April 26, included a model framework for analyzing systems biology models to better understand how diseases work, including heart disorders, radiation diseases, and prostate cancer.
David Hsu, who supervised Liu's doctorate at the National University of Singapore, described his departure as "an unspeakable shock and tragedy."
Hsu said that Liu was a computer scientist with great experience, but his expertise later developed in both computer science and biology, and he applied mathematical and computational tools to model biological systems.
"He is a bright scholar and a warm soul," Hsu added. "I find it difficult to accept the departure of such an extraordinary person in this way."