Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Ryan Qiu

A fourth-year medical student at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, bringing clinical experience, research and practical operating experience to Asclepius.

Ryan Qiu pictured with his significant other Aileen Chen, MD

Built alongside clinical training

Close to the problem.
Committed to building.

Ryan Qiu is a 4th year medical student at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) and the Founder and CEO of Asclepius. Drawing on his firsthand experiences in clinical medicine, Ryan developed a functional prototype while completing his clinical rotations, incorporating feedback from practicing physicians to address the administrative challenges of prior authorizations and insurance denials.

Ryan has led Asclepius from its initial concept through product design, development, and testing, guided by a central mission: reduce administrative burdens so physicians can focus on what matters most - caring for patients. He is now spearheading Asclepius’s $4 million pre-seed fundraising initiative to accelerate product development, expand the team, and bring the platform closer to nationwide clinical implementation.

Academic foundation: Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 2022. Graduated summa cum laude.
Product foundation: A functional prototype built during clinical rotations, informed by feedback from practicing physicians.

The experience behind the product

Clinical perspective.
Practical execution.

Building useful healthcare software takes more than identifying a problem. Ryan’s background connects the patient’s experience, the discipline of research and the daily work of running a team.

Listening to patients and clinicians

Clinical rotations and feedback from practicing physicians shaped Asclepius’s focus on patient history and insurance work. His volunteer experience includes collecting medical histories with Remote Area Medical, supporting pediatric patients at East Tennessee Children’s Hospital and supervised wound care at Regional One Hospital. He also tutors medical students and mentors a junior research colleague.

Working with evidence

Ryan’s research experience spans Campbell Clinic and UTHSC’s Department of Orthopedic Surgery and Biomedical Engineering, including radiographic measurements, study data and osteoarthritis research. He co-authored a 2026 study of AI-generated answers to orthopaedic patient questions, contributing analysis, data curation and manuscript writing. Its focus on readability and sources is relevant to his interest in clear, source-linked clinical information.

Read the patient-communication study ↗

Managing people and operations

Before and during his medical training, Ryan held restaurant management roles at The Saucy Crab, Yido Ramen and Sunny Kitchen. He hired and trained staff, coordinated front-of-house and kitchen teams, monitored operating costs and prepared monthly performance reports. That experience gives him a practical view of the staffing, handoffs and operating constraints that shape whether a new workflow is useful.

Why he is building Asclepius

More of the visit
should belong to the patient.

Ryan’s commitment to medicine is the reason he is building Asclepius. He wants physicians to begin with a useful patient history, spend the visit examining and listening, and carry care plans forward with less time lost to insurance paperwork.

He has already translated that priority into a functional prototype while completing clinical rotations. His work now centers on turning clinician feedback into a product that fits the way practices work: prepared information, clear sources and a physician’s judgment at the center.

With Jason Qiu leading technical direction and Cameron Hager leading business development, Ryan’s role is to keep clinical needs, product priorities and physician feedback connected.

Leading Asclepius alongside medical training keeps the patient’s experience close to his product decisions. His aim is to build a company that earns a place in clinical practice by giving physicians more time to listen, reason and care for their patients.

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