Periodical Abstracts Online

PAO is a good starting place --easy to use, familiar, and covers a pretty good range of publications (though they tend to be 'general' and not particularly likely to cover the "primary literature" of any field exhaustively)

I begin with prion* and PAO recognises the * as a truncation character: 

Expanding "PRION*"
PRION        is in 82    titles.
PRIONIODINID is in 1     title.
PRIONOTES    is in 1     title.
PRIONS       is in 22    titles.
PRION*       is in 106   titles.

There are 106 entries with PRION*.

 You searched for the WORD: prion*                     PERIODICAL ABSTRACTS
 106 entries found, entries 1-8 are:                 APPEARS IN          DATE
     1  Anticancer drug slows down prion dise New Scientist             Nov 96
     2  Normal host prion protein (PrPc) is r Proceedings of the Nation Nov 96
     3  Molecular analysis of prion strain va Nature                    Oct 96
     4  Editorial : New diagnostic tests for  New England Journal of Me Sep 96
     5  Prion Diseases                        British Medical Journal ( Sep 96
     6  Prion Diseases                        New England Journal of Me Sep 96
     7  Approaches to prions                  Science                   Aug 96
     8  Diving ability of Blue Petrels and Th Condor                    Aug 96
     9  Keeping an open mind about prions     Lancet                    Aug 96
    10  More on prions                        Science                   Aug 96
    11  Support for the prion hypothesis for  Science                   Aug 96
    12  Yeast prions : DNA-free genetics?     Science                   Aug 96
    13  Circumventing tolerance to generate a Proceedings of the Nation Jul 96
    14  Multiple roles for PrP in the prion d Trends in Neurosciences   Jul 96
    15  NMR structure of the mouse prion prot Nature                    Jul 96
    16  Putting prions to the test            Science                   Jul 96
    17  Prion research programme proposed     Nature                    Jun 96
    18  Two mutant prion proteins expressed i Proceedings of the Nation May 96
    19  Altered circadian activity rhythms an Nature                    Apr 96
    20  A new variant of prion disease        Lancet                    Apr 96
    21  Those corrupting prions               Economist                 Apr 96
    22  Mice deficient for prion protein exhi Proceedings of the Nation Mar 96
    23  Role of microglia and host prion prot Nature                    Mar 96
    24  Normal host prion protein necessary f Nature                    Jan 96
Plenty here to get started with. The records aren't very detailed, and the indexing terms are pretty primitive, but we DO get notification that W&L has the journal, and that it's located under National: 
 AUTHOR       Brandner, Sebastian.
 TITLE        Normal host prion protein (PrPc) is required for scrapie spread
                within the central nervous system.

 APPEARS IN   Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United
                States of America 1996, v93n23, Nov 12, p. 13148-13151 (4 pages)

 SUMMARY      To determine whether PrPc is required for scrapie spread, a study
                inoculated prions intraocularly into Prnpo/o mice containing a
                PrP-overexpressing neurograft.  Results demonstrate that PrP is
                necessary for prion spread along neural pathways.

 SUBJECT      Proteins.
              Nervous system.
              Medical research.
              Disease.

 Holdings: PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STAT 
 1 > Leyburn Library PERIODICALS SHELVED UNDER: NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES  
   LIB HAS: 61(1978)-