diff --git a/build.xml b/build.xml
index c6b1afc56..7702be7e4 100644
--- a/build.xml
+++ b/build.xml
@@ -1174,14 +1174,16 @@
             <echo message="" />
             <echo message="Sting: Running @{testtype} test cases!"/>
 
+	    <!-- no test is allowed to run for more than 10 hours -->
             <taskdef resource="testngtasks" classpath="${testng.jar}"/>
             <testng outputDir="@{outputdir}"
                     classpathref="${testng.classpath}"
                     haltOnFailure="false" failureProperty="test.failure"
                     verbose="2"
+		            timeout="36000000"
                     workingDir="${basedir}"
                     useDefaultListeners="false"
-                    listeners="org.testng.reporters.FailedReporter,org.testng.reporters.JUnitXMLReporter,org.broadinstitute.sting.StingTextReporter,org.uncommons.reportng.HTMLReporter">
+                    listeners="org.testng.reporters.FailedReporter,org.testng.reporters.JUnitXMLReporter,org.broadinstitute.sting.TestNGTestTransformer,org.broadinstitute.sting.StingTextReporter,org.uncommons.reportng.HTMLReporter">
                 <jvmarg value="-Xmx${test.maxmemory}" />
                 <jvmarg value="-ea" />
                 <jvmarg value="-Djava.awt.headless=true" />
diff --git a/public/java/test/org/broadinstitute/sting/TestNGTestTransformer.java b/public/java/test/org/broadinstitute/sting/TestNGTestTransformer.java
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..6a1a37de9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/public/java/test/org/broadinstitute/sting/TestNGTestTransformer.java
@@ -0,0 +1,37 @@
+package org.broadinstitute.sting;
+
+import org.apache.log4j.Logger;
+import org.testng.IAnnotationTransformer;
+import org.testng.annotations.ITestAnnotation;
+
+import java.lang.reflect.Constructor;
+import java.lang.reflect.Method;
+
+/**
+ * Provide default @Test values for GATK testng tests.
+ *
+ * Currently only sets the maximum runtime to 10 minutes, if it's not been specified.
+ *
+ * See http://beust.com/weblog/2006/10/18/annotation-transformers-in-java/
+ *
+ * @author depristo
+ * @since 10/31/12
+ * @version 0.1
+ */
+public class TestNGTestTransformer implements IAnnotationTransformer {
+    public static final long DEFAULT_TIMEOUT = 1000 * 60 * 10; // 10 minutes max per test
+
+    final static Logger logger = Logger.getLogger(TestNGTestTransformer.class);
+
+    public void transform(ITestAnnotation annotation,
+                          Class testClass,
+                          Constructor testConstructor,
+                          Method testMethod)
+    {
+        if ( annotation.getTimeOut() == 0 ) {
+            logger.warn("test " + testMethod.toString() + " has no specified timeout, adding default timeout " + DEFAULT_TIMEOUT / 1000 / 60 + " minutes");
+            annotation.setTimeOut(DEFAULT_TIMEOUT);
+        }
+    }
+}
+