Recent advances in radical azidation using sulfonyl azides are presented. For instance, radical carboazidation using $\alpha$-iodoketones, desulfitative carboazidation and anti- Markovnikov hydroazidation of alkenes are described. These novel methods tolerate a large number of functional groups and allow the synthesis of organic azides that would be difficult to synthesize otherwise. The transformation of the azides using reductive processes as well as a Schmidt reaction under nonacidic conditions were used to synthesize alkaloids including indolizidine 167B, monomorine I, cylindricine C and lepadiformine C. {\textcopyright} 2012 IUPAC.