On a day of vivid hues last fall, an anxious group of architects, contractors, engineers and scientists gathered in the basement of a building in Rockville, Md. The structure was supposed to be converted by year's end into the greatest DNA sequencing factory in the world, but the planning meeting confirmed that problems were piling up. Delivery of a crucial steam generator had fallen behind. And it wasn't even clear that the walls of the 113,000-square-foot office building, which had been occupied by a defense contractor but now stood gutted, would accommodate all the pipes and wires needed to run the new laboratories.

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