Barbie debuts dolls in honour of real-life pandemic heroes

Barbie makers have honoured real-life pandemic heroes like Prof Dame Sarah Gilbert who designed the Oxford coronavirus vaccine by modelling Barbies dolls after them.

The 59-year-old professor at Oxford University and co-developer of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine is one of six women in the COVID-19 fight who have their Barbies.

Toy maker Mattel Inc is recognizing women working in science, technology, engineering and maths with a line of Barbie "role model" dolls.

Sarah's Barbie shares her long auburn hair and black glasses and is dressed in a blue pantsuit and white blouse.

"It's a very strange concept having a Barbie doll created in my likeness," Gilbert said in an interview for Mattel. "I hope it will be part of making it more normal for girls to think about careers in science."

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Moreover, the other dolls include Chika Stacy Oriuwa, a Canadian psychiatry resident at the University of Toronto who battled systemic racism in healthcare and Brazilian researcher Jaqueline Goes de Jesus, who led the sequencing of the genome of a COVID-19 variant in Brazil, the company said.

Lastly, a doll honours an Australian doctor Kirby White,  who pioneered a surgical gown that can be reused by frontline workers.

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