Beatriz Domínguez-Gil (ES)

Chair Invited Speaker

Director General · Organización Nacional de Trasplantes · Madrid

Beatriz Domínguez-Gil
Biography Click to expand

A medical doctor specialised in Nephrology and PhD by the Complutense University in Madrid, she has been the Director General since May 2017. ONT is acknowledged worldwide for the development of the so-called Spanish Model on Organ Donation and Transplantation, leading Spain to extraordinary levels of deceased donation.

Dr. Domínguez-Gil has had a central role in shaping organ donation and transplantation policy within the European Union (EU). She was actively involved in the drafting and implementation of EU Directive 2010/53/EU, which established quality and safety standards for human organs for transplantation. More recently, she contributed to the formulation of the EU Regulation on Substances of Human Origin (SoHO), which unifies and modernizes EU legislation on blood, tissues, cells, and other SoHO for clinical use.

Dr. Domínguez-Gil has long-standing collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) and has been a member of its Task Force on Transplantation. She was actively involved in the revision of the WHO Guiding Principles on Transplantation, adopted in 2010, and led the drafting of the Madrid Resolution (2011) on national responsibility and self-sufficiency in transplantation.

She played a leading role in the development of the UN General Assembly Resolution on Preventing and Combating Trafficking in Persons for the Purpose of Organ Removal, adopted in 2017 and reaffirmed in 2018, 2020 and 2022. Most recently, she led the Spanish delegation in promoting and drafting the World Health Assembly (WHA) Resolution on Transplantation, which was adopted in 2024. This resolution marked a renewed global commitment to ethical, transparent, and sustainable transplant systems and was built on years of coordinated international policy work.

Since December 2025, she is a member of the WHO Expert Advisory Panel that will develop a Global Strategy on Donation and Transplantation.

In recognition of her global influence, she was appointed in 2025 as a Commissioner of The Lancet Commission in Transplantation, joining a multidisciplinary group of international leaders tasked with shaping future global strategies in transplantation science, ethics, and public health policy.

She is president of the Iberoamerican Network/Council on Organ Donation and transplantation (RCIDT) and member of the Task Force in Transplantation established by the World Health Organization.

She is past chair of the European Donation and Transplant Coordination Organization (EDTCO). past councillor for Europe at The Transplantation Society (TTS), and past chair of the Declaration of Istanbul Custodian Group on Organ Trafficking and Transplant Tourism. She has more than 280 publications in scientific journals and book chapters and more than 600 conferences and presentations in national and international congresses and courses.

Organ Donation & Transplantation Worldwide: 2024 Global Report – Expert Panel Discussion Click to watch
Beatriz Domínguez-Gil (Panelist), Friederike Martin (Panelist), Stefan Tullius (Panelist)
In this special panel, Stefan G. Tullius, MD, PhD (Editor-in-Chief, Transplantation), Friederike Martin, MD, and Beatriz Domínguez-Gil, MD, PhD discuss the findings of the landmark publication:

📄 Organ Donation and Transplantation Worldwide: The Global Observatory on Donation and Transplantation 2024 Report
Published in Transplantation (March 2026) 

In 2024, a record 173,727 solid organ transplants were performed worldwide — the highest number ever reported to the Global Observatory on Donation and Transplantation (GODT). This represents a 2% increase from 2023, largely driven by growth in deceased donation, including continued expansion of donation after circulatory determination of death (DCD), which accounted for 28% of all deceased donations.

The panel explores:

🔹 Global transplant activity trends across regions
🔹 The continued gap between supply and demand (over 668,000 patients waitlisted globally)
🔹 Geographic disparities in access to transplantation
🔹 The impact of DCD expansion and donor utilization rates
🔹 Ethical frameworks, transparency, and global benchmarking
🔹 The role of WHO and international collaboration in strengthening transplant systems

Despite record-breaking numbers, more than 31,000 patients died in 2024 while waiting for a transplant, underscoring the ongoing global organ shortage and inequities in access.

This discussion provides critical insights for clinicians, policymakers, researchers, and transplant professionals committed to expanding ethical access and strengthening donation systems worldwide.

https://journals.lww.com/transplantjournal/fulltext/10.1097/tp.0000000000005657~organ-donation-and-transplantation-worldwide-the-global

Programme roles

Sunday, September 20, 2026

Monday, September 21, 2026

Tuesday, September 22, 2026

Darling Harbour
Invited Speaker Plenary Session
TTS President's Plenary
Lecture Woman Leader in Transplantation Recipient