Barbie's latest job is as a Covid-19 hero, creating a jab to save the world

Since Barbie's introduction as a teenage fashion model in 1959, the doll has been portrayed with many careers. She's broken boundaries in male-dominated fields, as an astronaut, a baseball player and a computer programmer. Just in time for Women's Day 2021, she has a new job: making a jab that will help save the world.

Toymaker Mattel has designed a likeness of one of the scientists who helped create the Oxford Covid-19 vaccine, in the hope of inspiring girls to get into science, technology, engineering or maths careers.

According to Sky News, professor Sarah Gilbert has been honoured as a "Barbie Role Model" for her work at the University of Oxford and for her position as project leader in the creation of one of the Covid-19 vaccines.

"My wish is that my doll will show children the careers they may not be aware of, like a vaccinologist," said Gilbert. "It's a strange concept having a Barbie made in my likeness," she said in an interview for Mattel.

Mattel is also honouring five other women who've made a big impact on the world during the pandemic. They are:

• Emergency room nurse Amy O'Sullivan, who treated the first Covid-19 patient at the Wycoff Hospital in Brooklyn, New York;

• Dr Audrey Cruz, a frontline worker from Las Vegas who joined forces with other Asian-American physicians to fight racial bias and discrimination;

• Dr Chika Stacy Oriuwa, a psychiatry resident at the University of Toronto, Canada, who advocated against systemic racism in health care;

• Biomedical researcher Dr Jacqueline Goes de Jesus, credited with leading the sequencing of the genome of a Covid-19 variant in Brazil; and

• Dr Kirby Whitby, who co-founded "Gowns for Doctors", a gown that can be laundered and re-used.