Better than a fictional murder mystery, the murder of researcher Bing Liu beats any Agatha Christie plot. Christie doesn’t reveal the most pertinent information about the motive for murder until the end of the book, which is both irritating and a deterrent to reading her books. In contrast to Agatha Christie, the clues to the motive for this murder are public knowledge.
Bing Liu was a research assistant professor when he was fatally shot in Pennsylvania last weekend. Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine where Bing Liu worked recently reported they had developed a potential vaccine for COVID-19.
“We’d like to get this into patients as soon as possible,” said Andrea Gambotto, associate professor of surgery at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and co-author of a paper announcing the vaccine in the journal EBioMedicine.
As far as reaching clinical trials, “We would like to think a month, give or take. Maybe two months. We just started the process,” said co-author Louis D. Falo Jr., a professor and chairman of the Department of Dermatology at the University of Pittsburgh.”
The race is on to develop a vaccine for COVID-19 and leading the charge are Chinese companies. Three weeks ago Fortune reported:
“China now has more COVID-19 vaccine candidates approved for human testing than any other country in the world.
On Tuesday, Chinese health authorities approved vaccine candidates developed by two Chinese companies—the state-owned Wuhan Institute of Biological Products and the Beijing-based biotech firm Sinovac—for phase I testing on humans, according to China’s state-run media outlet Xinhua News.
This follows an April 10 announcement that CanSino Biologics, a biotech firm based in Tianjin, China, and its partners at the Academy of Military Medical Sciences, were the world’s first vaccine makers to move into phase II trials for vaccine development.”
The University of Pittsburgh said Bing Liu was on the verge of making very significant findings toward understanding the cellular mechanisms that underlie SARS-Cov-2 infection.
Dr Liu was a research assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Medicine with an expertise in “computational modeling and analysis of biological systems dynamics.”
The school said he was an “outstanding” and “prolific” researcher who stood out during the COVID-19 crisis.
Dr Ivet Bahar, head of the Computational and Systems Biology Department, told the Post-Gazette that Liu had only recently begun researching COVID-19 and ‘was just starting to obtain interesting results’.
“He was sharing with us, trying to understand the mechanism of infection, so we will hopefully continue what he was doing
Bing Liu’s research relates to understanding the “spike” on the virus because it is the key to developing a vaccine to disable the spike.
“The Pittsburgh researchers touted two advantages to the vaccine they call PittCoVacc.
Most important, the vaccine does not have to be frozen when stored or transported; it can sit at room temperature. That would make the vaccine much cheaper to deliver to poorer countries.
While the researchers could not say exactly how much a dose of the vaccine will cost, they estimated that the patch of needles used to deliver the vaccine would likely cost less than $10 a patch.
Also, the technique employing the tiny needles releases a highly concentrated, much smaller amount of viral protein. The scientists said a single person would be able to make hundreds of vaccine patches a day.
The vaccine was developed without using the live virus that causes COVID-19. Scientists used DNA molecules made in the lab.
When released from the patch, the vaccine exploits the crucial part of the virus that latches onto human cells, the Spike protein.
The virus’ Spike protein usually acts like a key opening up human cells and allowing the virus to invade. The vaccine acts a little like gum in a lock, preventing the key from working and keeping the virus from entering human cells.”
Unlike the unfortunate Chinese whistleblower Li Wenliang, Bing Liu’s death could never be attributed to the virus because Bing Liu worked with DNA molecules.
“Bing Liu, a 37-year-old research assistant professor, was found dead in a home Saturday with gunshot wounds in his head, neck, torso and an extremity, according to the Allegheny County medical examiner.
An hour later, a second person, 46-year-old Hao Gu, was found dead in a vehicle less than a mile away, according to the agency.
Investigators believe Gu killed Liu in his home before returning to his car and taking his own life, Detective Sgt. Brian Kohlhepp of the Ross Police Department said in a statement.
This story has similarities with the public assassination of John F Kennedy in 1963 where the chief suspect, Lee Harvey Oswald, was gunned down two days later. Bing Liu’s murder is tidier because the murder suspect allegedly committed suicide.
“Police believe the men knew each other and that the homicide was “the result of a lengthy dispute regarding an intimate partner,” Kohlhepp said.”
Unsurprisingly, the motive given for the murder is an alleged “lengthy dispute regarding an intimate partner”. Bing Liu is a Chinese citizen with a wife and parents in China. Although Gao Gu’s nationality is undisclosed I would put money on his Chinese citizenship. I would also put money on the alleged love interest being a red herring, par for the course in an Agatha Christie murder mystery. I rest my case.
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