Overcoming the challenges in achieving equity in global access to kidney transplantation
Beatriz Domínguez-Gil (ES)
Director General · Organización Nacional de Trasplantes · Madrid
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.