Chapter 1 is a brief literature review of the most recent progress in the area of C-H functionalization via palladium catalysis. This covers the functionalization of electron deficient arenes and heterocycles with alkenyl and alkyl halides both using inter- and intra-molecular reactions. The chapter also contains an overview of recent work from the Willis group.

Chapter 2 presents the functionalization of electron deficient arenes and alkenyl bromides using palladium catalysis, as well as the use of statistical analysis software for optimizing the cross-coupling reaction.

Chapter 3 describes the cross-coupling of substituted benzoxazoles, benzothiazole and benzimidazole with a range of alkenyl iodides using palladium catalysis. The reaction can tolerate both (E) and (Z) disubstituted alkenes and tri-substituted alkenyl iodides, with retention of the double bond geometry.

Chapter 4 details the synthesis of sultams via an intramolecular C-H functionalization using palladium catalysis. The chapter covers the optimization of the starting material synthesis as well as the cross-coupling reaction. We can access the sulfonamides from cyclohexenone and were able to incorporate a large range of substitution patterns (Scheme 3).

Finally, Chapter 5 contains all the experimental details, general considerations and compound data. All the NMR spectra of novel compounds can be found in the appendix.