Unnatural gene expression imposes a load on engineered microorganisms thatdecreases their growth and subsequent production yields, a phenomenon knownasburden. In the last decade, the field of synthetic biology has made progress onthe development of biomolecular feedback control systems and other approachesthat can improve the growth of engineered cells, as well as the genetic stability,portability and robust performance of cell-hosted synthetic constructs. In thisreview, we highlight recent work focused on the development of host-aware syn-thetic biology.