Lighting up the Lung, Detecting Disease Based at the Queen's Medical Research Institute at the University of Edinburgh, Proteus is an EPSRC funded Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration (IRC), with other major investment from the Wellcome Trust and three consortium Universities. Proteus is part of the "Powered by CARB-X" portfolio. Working directly for Proteus is an interdisciplinary team of scientists, engineers and clinicians, hailing from the Universities of Edinburgh, Bath and Heriot-Watt. The team, along with various industrial partners, have been brought together to work towards the common goal of revolutionising how lung diseases are diagnosed and managed within the Intensive Care environment, where patients are most at risk of respiratory failure and bedside care is critical. Proteus' world-class standing in fibre optic research, sensing and imaging, signal processing, and clinical care has resulted in the design of a fully integrated system that will provide the necessary rapid and accurate diagnosis of bacterial infection. As of January 2017, the team have already demonstrated that the use of a fluorescence-based microendoscopy system is capable of simultaneously detecting several different pathogens in human ex vivo lung tissue. Preparations are now underway to perform the first in vivo human clinical studies, marking a huge milestone in the project timeline.