Creating a UI list at runtime programmatically

I have a scene where I should be able to select a 3D model from a list of items, which will then be loaded into the next scene. I want to generate the list of items programmatically, based on what is already stored in the local database. But I have problems getting the list of items to be displayed in the scene ...

So I have a class for the items:

 [System.Serializable] public class Item { 
 public string ObjectGuid;
     public string Name;
     public string Description;
     public Sprite Icon;
     public Button.ButtonClickedEvent SelectObject; }

A script for my scene, that contains a list of items and a method that I call to load the objects from the database:

 public class ObjectSelectionScript : MonoBehaviour {
 public List<Item> itemList;
 public Transform contentPanel;
 
     void LoadObjects() {
         StreamReader str = new StreamReader (Application.persistentDataPath + "/" + DataManager.LOCATION_XML_PATH);
         string result = str.ReadToEnd ();
         str.Close();
         var jo = SimpleJSON.JSON.Parse (result);
 
         if (jo ["Objects"] != null) {
             for (int i = 0; i < jo["Objects"].Count; i++) {
                 if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(jo["Objects"][i]["FileGuid"])) {
                     Item newObject = new Item();
                     newObject.ObjectGuid = jo["Objects"][i]["ObjectGuid"];
                     newObject.Name = jo["Objects"][i]["Name"];
                     newObject.Description = jo["Objects"][i]["Description"];
                     //newObject.SelectObject = new Button.ButtonClickedEvent();
                     itemList.Add(newObject);
                 }
             }
         } 
 }

A ModelObject class:

 public class ModelObject : MonoBehaviour {
     public Button button;
     public Text Name;
     public Text Description;
     public Image Icon;
 }

And a prefab ModelObjectPrefab that contains Name, Description, a Thumbnail, added to my assests folder.

The PopulateList() method is my problem. I can't get to instatiate the prefab and then create ModelObjects that I can throw in the contentPanel in the interface. This is my code:

  void PopulateList()
     {
         try {
             foreach (var item in itemList)
             {
                 GameObject newModel = Instantiate(ModelObject) as GameObject;
                     ModelObject myModelObject = newModel.GetComponent<ModelObject>();
                     myModelObject.Name.text = item.Name;
                     myModelObject.Description.text = item.IDescription;
                     myModelObject.icon.sprite = item.Icon;
                     myModelObject.button.onClick = item.selectObject;
                     newModel.transform.SetParent(contentPanel);
                 
             }
             
         } catch (System.Exception ex) {
             
         }
     }
 

I currently get null pointer on instantiate. I have tried Resources.Load, and variations of the Instatiate method, but I did not find a solution.

Can anyone give me a hint what is the problem? How should PopulateList() look like to get the items to the interface?