Our group is interested in the synthesis and structure-activity relationships (SAR) of biologically active heterocyclic natural products in the anticancer area. Our research involves the state of the art development of transition metal-catalyzed reactions which significantly shortens a chemical synthetic route compared to classical organic chemistry schemes. We are interested in the development of ligands for metal-catalyzed cross-coupling and C-H activation reactions as a proof of principle methodology and then we apply these new reactions to selected heterocyclic biological targets.