The Recipient of the 2024 ICO Jules François Golden Medal is Dr. Gullapalli Nag Rao.

The Jules François Golden Medal is awarded every four years for ophthalmic work of high scientific quality.

Dr. Rao is founder and chair of the L V Prasad Eye Institute in Hyderabad, India. He established the institute in 1987 after a successful career in ophthalmology at the University of Rochester in the United States. The L V Prasad Eye Institute has currently 277 Vision Centres that provide primary care and are linked to 26 Secondary Eye Care Centres and 4 Tertiary Centres.

Dr Rao holds Honorary Doctorates from the University of Melbourne and University of New South Wales in Australia, Dr. NTR University of Health Sciences in India, University of Bradford in the UK and The Gandhi Institute of Technology and Management GITAM University in India. Dr. Rao is former ICO Board Member, former President of Academia Ophthalmologica Internationalis and former Chair of the Board and CEO of IAPB.  He published over 300 papers in peer reviewed international journals and is “Fellow qua surgeon” of the Royal college of Physicians and Surgeons Glasgow, Fellow of two of the Science Academies of India and of the National Academy of Medical Sciences. In 2020, the prestigious ”Gullapalli N. Rao – All India Ophthalmological Society Endowment Lecture” was created.