Gullapalli N Rao returned to India in 1986 to establish L V Prasad Eye Institute, after a successful career in the United States as an academic ophthalmologist. Dr Rao received his basic medical education in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, and completed his postgraduate training in ophthalmology at the All India Institute for Medical Sciences, New Delhi. He went to the United States in 1974, where he was trained first at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, and later at the University of Rochester School of Medicine, where he continued on the faculty until his return to India.

His areas of specialization include diseases of the cornea, eye banking and corneal transplantation, community eye health, eye care policy and planning. He has published over 250 papers in national and international journals, and has contributed several book chapters. He is currently President of the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness, in which role he leads VISION 2020: The Right to Sight, the global initiative to eliminate avoidable blindness by the year 2020.