The first step of SELEX involves the synthesis of fully or partially randomized oligonucleotide sequences of some length flanked by defined regions which allow PCR amplification of those randomized regions and, in the case of RNA SELEX, in vitro transcription of the randomized sequence. While Ellington and Szostak demonstrated that chemical synthesis is capable of generating ~10 unique sequences for oligonucleotide libraries in their 1990 paper on in vitro selection, they found that amplification of these synthesized oligonucleotides led to significant loss of pool diversity due to PCR bias and defects in synthesized fragments. The oligonucleotide pool is amplified and a sufficient amount of the initial library is added to the reaction so that there are numerous copies of each individual sequence to minimize the loss of potential binding sequences due to stochastic events. Before the library is introduced to target for incubation and selective retention, the sequence library must be converted to single stranded oligonucleotides to achieve structural conformations with target binding properties.