MURDER OF PITT RESEARCHER MAY NOT BE RELATED TO COVID-19. POSSIBLE DISTRACTION.
the murder of Pitt research asst prof Bing Liu may not be connected to his research after all. i have reviewed his recent publications as well as a list of his current projects and manuscripts in preparation, and there is nothing overtly related to SARS-CoV-2. Bing Liu was a member of the Computational & Systems Biology Dept, and his work was primarily computational. meaning he did advanced computer modeling at the interface of chemistry and biology, studying 3D models of large biological molecules to gain insights into how they interact (Qualitative Structure Activity Relationships). he had numerous ongoing projects, and some of his work was basic research into immune response, which could include the immune response to CV, but it is not specifically mentioned on his personal web page at Pitt.
http://www.pitt.edu/~liubing/
i imagine the university will get around to taking this web page down sooner or later. if sooner, i have downloaded it and other related materials and archived them offline. if anyone wants them, provide a protonmail address or other secure email and i will send them as attachments. probably too big to upload to this board (i'll try it…)

Bing Liu
Research Assistant Professor Computational & Systems Biology Department School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh
Address: BST3 3085, 3501 Fifth Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 Phone: (412) 648-7775 Email: liubing[AT]pitt.edu
About
I received Bachelor and PhD in Computer Science under the supervision of Profs P.S. Thiagarajan and David Hsu from National University of Singapore. Previously, I have been working with Prof Edmund M. Clarke (Turing Award 2007) as a Postdoctoral Fellow in Department of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, and with Prof Ivet Bahar as a Research Associate in the Department of Computational & Systems Biology, School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh. Currently, I am Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Computational & Systems Biology, School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh. [CV]
Research
My research area centers on computational systems biology. I develop computational modeling, simulation and analysis techniques to study the dynamics of biological systems. As an integral part of my research, I collaborate with a number of biologists and clinicians to study a variety of crucial biological processes related to human immunity and cancer. I also leverage high-performance computing, formal verification, and machine learning techniques to enable the analysis of multi-scale systems. Furthermore, I am applying the techniques I have been developing to analyze cyber-physical systems that are ubiquitous in safety-critical applications. [More]
Publications
• W Sun, V Tyurin, G Mao, I Shrivastava, B Liu, Y Zhai, S Korolev, A Abramov, P Angelova, I Miller, O Beharier, H Dar, O Kapralov, T Hastings, J Greenamyre, C Chu, I Bahar, Y Sadovsky, H Bayır, Y Tyurina, R He, V Kagan iPLA2G6 Protects Cells against Ferroptosis by Hydrolyzing the Lipid Signal of Death, 15-HpETE-PE: Relevance to Parkinson Disease Pathogenesis, Nature Neuroscience, under review (2020). PDF
• B Liu. A Model Checking-based Analysis Framework for Systems Biology Models, The 57th ACM/IEEE Design Automation Conference (DAC), San Francisco, US (2020). IEEE, pp.1-6 PDF
• Q Shi, F Pei, G Silverman, S Pak, D Perlmutter, B Liu, I Bahar. Mechanisms of Action of Autophagy Modulators Dissected by Quantitative Systems Pharmacology Analysis, International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 21(8). 2855 (2020). doi: 10.3390/ijms21082855 PDF
• S Thermozier, W Hou, X Zhang, D Shields, R Fisher, H Bayir, V Kagam, J Yu, B Liu, I Bahar, M W Epperly, P Wipf, H Wang, and J S Greenberger. Anti-Ferroptosis Drug Enhances Total Body Irradiation Mitigation by Drugs that Block Apoptosis and Necroptosis, Radiation Research, [Epub ahead of print] (2020). doi: 10.1667/RR15486.1 PDF
• O Kapralov, Q Yang, H Dar, Y Tyurina, T Anthonymuthu, R Kim, C St. Croix, K Mikulska-Ruminska, B Liu, I Shrivastava, V Tyurin, H-C Ting, Y Wu, Y Gao, R Domingues, D Stoyanovsky, R Mallampalli, I Bahar, D Gabrilovich, H Bayir, and V Kagan Redox Lipid Reprogramming Commands Susceptibility of Macrophages and Microglia to Ferroptotic Death, Nature Chemical Biology, 16:2780-290 (2020). doi: 10.1038/s41589-019-0462-8 PDF
• S Thermozier, X Zhang, W Hou, R Fisher, M W Epperly, B Liu, I Bahar, S Markovina, C Luke, G Silverman, and J S Greenberger. Radioresistance of Serpinb3a-/- Mice and Derived Hematopoietic and Marrow Stromal Cell Lines, Radiation Research, 192(3):267-281 (2019). doi: 10.1667/RR15379.1. PDF