El Feki was born in Great Britain to a Welsh mother and an Egyptian father. She grew up in Canada, visiting her grandmother in Cairo on a regular basis. After graduating from the University of Toronto with a BSc in immunology in 1991, then obtaining an MPhil and PhD in immunology from the University of Cambridge, she joined The Economist as healthcare correspondent in 1998. After the 2001 WTC terror attacks, she learned Arabic and started to research the Middle East, in particular, the issues of emancipation and women's sexuality, spending much of her time in Egypt. In 2005, she left the Economist, and from 2006 to 2008, she hosted weekly shows, "People &amp; Power" and The Pulse, on Al Jazeera International. From 2010 to 2012, she was vice-chairwoman of the United Nations’ Global Commission on H.I.V. and the Law.