A £4.1 million extension to a historic Bristol University building in Whiteladies Road has been formally opened.

The extension, next to Clifton Down Railway Station, is an expansion of the world-class Department of Social Medicine, a leading centre for public health and health services teaching and research.

The department won major grants for research into public health issues, including £36 million for research into prostate cancer; more than £600,000 to research antiretroviral therapy and HIV; and almost £900,000 to look at suicide prevention.

Cutting edge research from the department has been published in major national and international journals, including the British Medical Journal and The Lancet.

Recently-published studies have examined what doctors tell cancer patients about the benefits and risks of chemotherapy; how antiretroviral therapy has increased life expectancy in HIV-positive patients; and how smoking rates among teenagers can be reduced by training influential pupils to promote anti-smoking messages.

The original Canynge Hall was built in 1880 and is in the Whiteladies Road conservation area close to Victorian terrace housing in Whatley Road and the nearby train station.

The extension will provide offices for the department's 60 staff, as well as clinical examination rooms, teaching rooms, and a lecture theatre. It was formally opened yesterday.

Professor Jenny Donovan, head of the social medicine department, said: "We are absolutely delighted with the new extension, funded by the University of Bristol and the Wolfson Foundation.

"The extension will greatly enhance our research and teaching capacities by providing state-of-the-art teaching facilities and high quality meeting and office accommodation."

The building was opened by Professor Stephen Frankel, head of the department from 1992 to 2004, and Ray Bartlett, senior porter, in a simple ceremony followed by the inaugural annual Stephen Frankel Lecture, delivered by Professor Ezra Susser of Columbia University, in New York.

Building work took almost two years to complete and the extension has been designed to be energy efficient and make the maximum use of natural light.