A new topological method that makes it possible to discriminate the active and inactive molecules on the basis of their chemical structures is applied in the present study to the antibacterial agents. This method uses neural networks in which training algorithms are used as well as different concepts and methods of artificial intelligence with a suitable set of topological descriptors. It is possible to obtain a QSAR interpretation of the information contained in the network after the training has been carried out. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.