Professor Rick Shine became an expert on the invasive amphibians after his snake research site on the Adelaide River floodplain near Darwin was overrun by cane toads a decade ago.

In order to help his beloved reptiles survive the onslaught, he needed to learn about the behaviour of the toads – and he has become very fond of them.

"She has beautiful eyes," he said of his cane toad Galadriel in his Sydney University laboratory ahead of Wednesday night's awards in Canberra.

Professor Shine is stunned to have won the coveted award, which his brother, molecular biologist John Shine, also won in 2010.

The prize was in recognition of his work to ensure northern Australia's peak predators are more likely to survive the cane toad invasion.

"I'm still in shock. I do incredibly simple science. I don't even own a lab coat, let alone have any machines with flashing lights," he said.

"It's extraordinary to me that what is essentially old-fashioned natural history with an evolutionary twist has been recognised with not one but two prizes in the course of a week."

Professor Shine also received the NSW Premier's Science Prize last Friday.

"You don't go prying into the sex lives of snakes thinking this is a guaranteed route to winning lucrative scientific awards. I just feel incredibly fortunate."

And because of Professor Shine's work, the peak predators of northern Australia are much more likely to survive the cane toad invasion.

The westward march of cane toads from Queensland into the Northern Territory and Western Australia is killing up to 95 per cent of native predators such as goannas, snakes, freshwater crocodiles and quolls.

This is because the frontline "storm troopers", as he calls them, are the large, highly toxic adult males. One toad meal for a yellow-spotted monitor is more than enough to kill it.

In his research, Professor Shine has been dropping juvenile toads ahead of the invasion line. Native predators eat these, get sick, but don't die – and are then far less likely to eat the larger toads when they arrive.

News from the front is promising. Initial studies show mortality rates dropping below 50 per cent among goannas 18 months after the toads arrive.

Working with Dr Ben Phillips at the University of Melbourne, Professor Shine has developed his theories further.

They have found that there is a genetic variation in the toads that relate to how quickly they spread, which they call "spatial sorting".

"Genes that make a toad go faster move to the front," Professor Shine said. "The genes that say 'take a night off' stay at the back."

He calls this the "Olympic village effect".

By dropping juveniles from the slower-dispersal populations ahead of the fast moving frontline, Professor Shine is not only training predators to avoid eating the larger, deadly, toads, he is creating a "genetic backburn" to slow down the advance.

The genetic material from the slow toads is moved into the front.

"All of the models suggest the toads won't be able to get too far south, certainly not beyond Sydney," he said. "But they do appear to have some bizarre physiological tricks that enable them to work at low temperatures.

"You'd be a brave person indeed to believe the toads will be limited by the factors that we currently think are constraining them."

This award caps a stellar career for Professor Shine. He has won every major prize for natural history in Australia and is the only person to have won Eureka prizes for science in three categories.

Bryan Fry at the University of Queensland, who studies snake venom, said he could think of a no more deserving winner. "He has had such an important impact on Australian science," he said.

Announcing the awards, a statement from Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Minister for Science Greg Hunt said: "As the calibre of these prize recipients demonstrates, this is an exciting time for science in Australia."

Other NSW winners this year are Professor Michael Aitken from Capital Markets CRC for innovation; Professor Richard Payne from the University of Sydney for physical science; and Gary Tilley from Seaforth Public School for science primary teaching.

Gary Tilley from Seaforth Public School has won the 2016 Prime Minister's prize for primary science teaching. Photo: PM's Prize for Science/Wildbear

Dr Colin Hall from the University of South Australia received the PM's prize for new innovators, Associate Professor Kerrie Wilson received the prize for life scientist of the year and Suzy Urbaniak from Perth won the prize for science teaching in secondary schools.