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Red blood cells (RBCs) are able to undergo significant shape changes when they flow in the microcirculation thanks to their ability to withstand large deformations. In this context, particular attention should be dedicated to the role of RBC deformability and membrane viscosity on the RBC fluid dynamics at the microscale. Experimentally investigating the impact of the RBC viscoelastic properties is challenging due to the overlapping effects of multiple viscous dissipation sources, making high-fidelity cell-resolved simulations crucial. This work focuses on (i) developing a fluid–structure interaction framework to predict the RBC dynamics at the microscale and (ii) evaluating the impact of the cell viscoelastic properties such as deformability, viscosity contrast and membrane viscosity on the RBC transport in bounded shear flow. An incompressible Lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) is adopted to resolve the fluid dynamics …