Aspects of quiver gauge theories from D-brane models

We will derive and analyse a number of D-brane based quiver gauge theories with interesting properties. Some of them are supersymmetric, but have long lived meta-stable non-supersymmetric vacuum states. Others exhibit interesting nontrivial quantum deformations. And some are very close to the particle spectrum of the Standard Model. Aspects of each of these theories have applications for String Theory phenomenology.