The fact that this has the word "Coronavirus" in the title feels like an inappropriate attention-grab here. Something truly terrible happened to a post-doc researcher. The title makes it sound like some sort of conspiracy is at play.
If true, I'd say "a medical researcher said to be on the 'verge of making very significant' coronavirus findings" being murdered makes the headline totally appropriate. I understand that the mind leans inevitably toward the question "was the murder related", making the headline seem like it's implying an inappropriate theory, but I just don't see another way of wording the headline any more neutrally, and I think it would be ridiculous to remove a relevant description from the headline just to avoid that inevitable thought.