Eng was born in Singapore 1962 and grew up in Bristol, England. She started studying at the University of Chicago aged 16.[1] She earned her Ph.D. in Developmental Biology in 1986 and her M.D. in 1988, both from the Pritzker School of Medicine, University of Chicago. Then specialising in internal medicine at Beth Israel Hospital, Boston and trained in medical oncology at Harvard’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.